


Woof!

by chezchuckles



Series: Army Castle [3]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: Army Spy, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:20:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 66,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles
Summary: Richard the spy returns to NYC with a companion.
Relationships: Kate Beckett & Richard Castle, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: Army Castle [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945063
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

Richard Castle was excited when he hopped off the subway and crossed the underground platform. He took the escalator two steps at at time, threading commuters, happy to be back here.

Happy to be headed home. As much as he had a home.

Richard tightened the backpack on his shoulders and came up into the winter light, breathing deep of the cool air. He’d missed Christmas and that gnawed at him now (probably he should have done something) but this was Beckett; be cool had become their own little smirking mantra.

He was catching her only a few days into the new year and that had to say something, right? He wasn’t a Christmas kind of guy, and she wasn’t a holidays person either, so it worked.

He walked faster, not caring if he was conspicuous, but it was New York City. No one gave a shit. So Castle didn’t worry like he used to.

Eight weeks this time. Eight weeks without her, without seeing her, and emails and phone calls seriously didn’t cut it. The five hour time difference was brutal, and of course, he was supposed to be doing his job, and she was supposed to be doing hers.

She usually tried him when he was deep in the middle of some illicit activity, gambling, drinking, and gun running, trying to get closer to Foley’s inner circle. Kate would call him on her lunch and he’d take her phone call even if he had a gun to his head. The crew would catcall and whistle and rib him for it, calling her his striapach. His whore.

It wasn’t every night, not even close. More often than not, she heard the distraction in his voice and told him do your job asshole and hung up on him without another word. A few weeks ago, she’d stopped calling him first, and he’d been the desperate one, calling her instead. He’d become her reminder to actually take her lunch, which she’d grumble about but take the break in some secluded place so he could talk her into something naughty.

Lately though, she’d been busy, in the middle of some open 911 call or just...

It’d been hard to connect these past few weeks.

Tonight was a surprise. He had picked up the apartment key from the locker near the airport, snagged the backpack that had his passport and cover ID - Richard Castle - and now he’d become that man once more. Her man.

He wasn’t the Irish asshole calling his whore every night.

He was a lonely man heading home.

\-----

He unlocked her apartment door with the key he’d made, putting his shoulder into it since it was warped and always stuck. But instead, it came open easily, making him stumble forward.

Hadn’t been expecting that. Someone had fixed the door in the last eight weeks.

Rick closed it behind him and shed his backpack and coat, throwing them over her couch, and then he hunted down the hallway for Kate.

Empty. Cool and soft.

She wasn’t home.

Huh. Hadn’t been expecting that either. It was nearly eight o’clock at night; where was she?

He put his hands on his hips and surveyed her bedroom, taking in all those discordant elements that individually never made any sense to him, but as a whole - as a whole, they were just her.

Kate Beckett.

The iron bedrails and the pretty, quilt-like comforter, the pressed flowers in their gilded frames, the mechanical elephant that actually could be wound up and walked across the stacks of her first edition books. She had a new elephant, a pale blue ceramic sitting back on its heels on her bedside table.

Didn’t look like Beckett at all, and that’s what he loved about it. All these pieces, these parts of her on display, they made walking into her bedroom feel like moving into a sacred space.

But she wasn’t here and he wanted to be where she was.

Rick headed back for the living room and his backpack where he’d shoved his Rick Castle ID packet - the phone, the key, the passport, and a couple of black t-shirts. He had a few things here, he thought, but he couldn’t remember. Sometimes he found newish pajama pants in the bottom of her closet that he thought she might have bought for him, but that couldn’t be right.

Castle had just started to unzip his pack when a key scraped the lock.

His heart thundered and he straightened up, suddenly wishing he’d brought flowers, something to hold in his hands while he waited for the door to open.

The door swung in and a bag was tossed to the floor ahead of Kate Beckett. She was in her black NYPD uniform, the shapeless pants and the tight turtleneck, and the thick, insulated coat. Gloves dropped on top of the bag and Kate was already shirking her coat when she finally noticed him.

“Fuck!” she gasped, jerking back so hard that she was nearly out in the hallway. She’d been grabbing for her weapon, he knew, but as an officer, it was still back in her locker at the precinct.

Good thing for him - she’d have shot him.

“Beckett,” he laughed, coming around the couch for her. She still looked like a startled jack rabbit, but she grabbed his forearm to hold him in close when he kissed her.

She groaned under his mouth and everything dropped, fell away. She surged up into him, wound her arms around his neck and roped him into her. He growled back in pleasure, ripping the coat from her arm and slinging it to the floor, going back for her shirt.

She moaned and stroked her tongue deeper, sliding her thighs to either side of his knee, rocking into him. He found the black camisole under the turtleneck and cursed her for all the layers, nipping her tongue and then her lip as he drew apart.

“This needs off,” he rasped.

She laughed at him and kicked the door shut, her eyes ravenous. Taking him in even as he took her in.

Her hair was back in that severe bun that he loved unpinning, and he reached for that first, pushing his fingers into the tight coil. She went still, and he tugged the rubber band free so that her hair fell halfway, still pinned and ragged with the day’s work. He felt his grin twist into a crooked, overwhelmed smile, and this time he pushed both hands into her hair, cupping her skull to angle her head to him.

He touched her mouth with his and breathed in her kiss, soft touches of his tongue and lips, until she sighed and reached up, pulled the bobby pins out herself. Show on the road, she murmured.

Her hair fell around his hands, cascading warm and free, and he came in closer, pressed her body back against the door. She sighed and rolled her hips into him in that lazy thrust that always made his blood heat, and he dropped his hands to find her pants.

She was talking now, little murmurs and encouragements, telling him oh that’s so good, your hands, right there just like that, and he kissed her deeply as he unbuttoned her uniform pants. She wriggled her hips and he helped them drop, and then she was toeing out of her shoes and kicking off those military black pants.

“Hey, baby,” he murmured back, sipping from her lips. He trailed down her neck and nudged his chin under the high rise of her collar, nipped the arch of her throat. “Mm, you taste good.”

“How about you taste a little further south?” she sighed. Her fingers gripped his ears and tugged him down and he gladly dropped to his knees.

He laughed and glanced up at her. “Socks?”

She lifted a foot and nudged her red and green striped toes into his crotch. “So?”

“I think you’re adorable.”

“I’m not adorable, you asshole. I’m a fucking cop and it’s fucking cold and these are thick.”

“They’re Christmassy,” he grinned, cupping her heel and teasing the top of her sock.

“They’re just red and green. They were on sale. Now fucking eat me out, Richard Castle.”

He laughed again. “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”

“Shut up,” she muttered, digging her heel into his thigh as he kneeled before her.

“Let’s get these adorable socks off your cute feet, baby,” he said, winking up at her.

Of course, she cursed at him and pushed her fingers into his forehead, knocking him on his ass. She was already yanking her socks off her feet and then tugging her turtleneck over her head. She moved to grab the hem of her black camisole with both hands, but he caught her wrists.

“Not yet, love.” He stood and quickly pushed off his own shoes and socks, grabbed her by the hip and pulled her past him. “Bedroom. I want to go down on you and then crawl up your body and slide that camisole off and devour your breasts.”

She tangled her fingers in his and led him back with her - not another word spoken.

He didn’t think she could speak.

\-----

“Be naked,” she gasped, her hips nudging up into his chin.

Rick grinned at her from the cradle of her parted thighs, rubbed his cheek against her inside thigh. “Be naked? Is that like a zen thing?”

“Fuck you. Get your fucking clothes off.” There was zero antagonism in her voice, only a desperation that made him hard for her.

“But.” He licked her bare skin and scraped his teeth against the swell of her muscle. “I really don’t want to move.”

“And I don’t want to have to wait for you to fucking disrobe after I come. I want you inside me as fast as possible. So get your damn clothes off.”

He laughed. Just - he was filled up with her. She was perfect for him. No one had ever come close to making him crazy like this, frustrating him and inspiring him and fucking turning him on.

“Good point,” he said finally. He lifted up from the bed and watched her - Kate Beckett sprawled before him with her knees spread and her own hand skimming under her black camisole. “Touch yourself while I watch. Nice and wet for me, missed that the most.”

She lifted an eyebrow but she was already running her fingers down over her panties, scratching at the material so that her lips parted and her hips came up. He shed his pants and tugged off his t-shirt, watching her tease herself.

“You missed this?” she murmured. She bit her bottom lip and moaned a little, rolled her middle finger back and forth over her panties. “Missed how I taste on your tongue?”

“Fuck,” he moaned, jerking at his pants to get them off his fucking foot.

“You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to go down on me, Rick. You know that, don’t you, and you love it.”

“I love it,” he growled. “The only one to make you feel that good.” Vulnerable, but he didn’t say it.

“So good,” she moaned, her hips coming up again. She’d shut her eyes but she rolled her head on the bed and her lashes parted just slightly, watching him. “I love seeing how big your cock is for me and you haven’t even gotten to touch me yet.”

“I’ve been half-hard thinking about you since the fucking plane.”

“What are you thinking now?” she murmured, dragging her fingers up and rubbing at the waistband of her panties.

“How much I want to - fuck, all of it. I want all of it. And I really love, oh fuck me, Kate, I really love that dirty mouth.”

“Mmm, yours is pretty fucking awesome too.”

He laughed, strangled with it, and finally got his boxer briefs off his damn foot and tossed them away. She grinned back at him and slipped her fingers under her panties. Down. Between her legs.

He jerked to a halt at the foot of her bed, his cock rising hard and bobbing for her, wanting her with every pulse of his heartbeat. She curled her fingers so that the material of her black panties bunched and then she withdrew her hand, held it out to him.

“Wanna a taste test?”

“I don’t need a fucking taste test,” he growled, dropping on his knees to the bed, making it shake. “I know what I want.”

Castle grabbed her wrist and yanked her hand to his mouth, wrapped his tongue around her taste and sucked.

She moaned and her foot snaked behind his knee, caught him and tried to drag him into her. Rick cupped her hand in his wider one and kissed the inside of her wrist, licked a circle around the knob of her bone, and then he pressed her hand down to her belly.

“Stay right there. Gonna eat you out now, baby.”

“Oh, fuck,” she gasped.

Just talking to her always had her so worked up for him - and he dropped forward to his elbows, settled between her legs. She rubbed her hand up her belly, rucking up her camisole, and then back down again through her own pubic hair, wanton and a little wild.

Her hips canted up into the heel of her hand and he watched her for a moment, enjoying how she worked herself up, and then he reached up for her panties.

She moaned as he dragged them down her slim legs, caught up in the smell of her lotion that emanated from her creamy skin. He put his tongue to the back of her knee and her hands came down to grip his hair, her gasp sounding as good as she tasted.

He mumbled love into her knee and trailed his tongue up the inside of her thigh, letting his teeth catch at the roll of skin as he journeyed.

Her nails scraped his scalp and he loved how her body started rising into it, trying to catch up to him, trying to meet him. He nudged his nose into the crease of her hip and breathed out against her pubic hair.

“Whoa, fuck,” she gasped, her thighs trembling.

He loved that. Oh fuck, he loved that. She was amazing. “Haven’t shaved in a few days, baby?” he laughed rolling his cheek against her thigh.

“Neither have you,” she growled back, her foot hooked around his shoulder and her heel digging into his back. “Whatever. You know you fucking love it.”

“I do,” he growled. That she had no one else, that when he came back he knew she’d been waiting for him - weeks or months, didn’t matter - because the stubble on her legs meant she had no one else, wanted no one else, that it was all for him.

He nipped her thigh and she grunted, a noise like she was struggling to hold back the whimpers.

Castle settled before her sex and dipped his mouth toward her, touched his tongue on the thickness of folds that were already beginning to show. Mm, her cream. This place, humbled right here between her legs. Magic.

She sucked a breath into her lungs and her knees came up, but he pressed them apart with his shoulders and an elbow. She always nearly closed her legs when he first touched her. Like some things couldn’t be entirely overcome, like her first reaction was always going to be oh no.

Sometimes she even still said it. With dread and desperation in equal parts.

As he always did, he waited for a heartbeat, eyes on her until she shivered and slapped at his ear. “Go.”

He touched his tongue to her folds and she mewled.

Castle pressed his kiss to her sex, palming her inside thighs to hold her down. She rose up and her legs clenched hard, trying to beat the sensation, and he took it as his cue to dive deeper.

She cried out when he sucked at her arousal, and her hips bumped into his nose. Rick pressed two fingers to her folds and spread her open to him, stroked his tongue along her sex to taste her deeper.

“Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.”

He loved this. The dark rich taste of her and knowing she was his alone, knowing she’d found this intensity only with him, that it was so very good for her, that he could make her shatter with his tongue and his fingers.

Beckett wasn’t one for vulnerability, and like this, she was completely vulnerable.

Her hips bucked into him and he started a more intense rhythm, taking her hard and fast to the top. She couldn’t stand much more than that; he hadn’t had time to condition her to the long and drawn-out orgasm, the power of it, but he would. He would because she would adore it, even as she hated it.

For now, he pushed his fingers inside her her and curled his tongue at her clit and stroked hard around that sensitive strip of skin.

She tensed, rigid under his hands, her breath harsh in her chest, and then she fell apart around his fingers, keening his name as she came.

Fuck.

She’d been right about getting naked.

Castle lifted from her thighs and slid his palms up her belly, crawled up her body to suckle her breasts even as she throbbed and pulsed with the last of her orgasm.

But instead of thrusting his cock inside her, he used his fingers.

\-----

She was crying out under him - don’t stop don’t stop - and he stroked his fingers inside her harder and harder as he sucked on her nipple. He could feel the sweat at the back of her neck where he gripped her hair to angle her just right, and he stayed balanced on his elbow so that his other hand could thrust his fingers deeper, working her tighter.

Kate gripped his shoulder and arched into his body, gasping, thrashing. He gave her his teeth, scraping her breast as he laved his tongue in a trail towards the other one. She whined in her throat and the sound vibrated in her ribs, traveled to his fingers between her legs so that he groaned in sympathy.

Fuck. She was so wild with it. She just threw herself at her orgasm, reaching for it so hard, but even as he held the reins, he could only whip her higher, faster.

Castle shifted his fingers so that he could add his thumb to the thrust, and she keened as he stretched her, hooking her leg at his hip and arching.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she yelled.

He stroked her and she writhed, her fingers digging into his ribs and her body trying to get closer, closer.

“Please, just - just - fuck me. Please,” she panted. “Deeper. Need you.”

He needed it too, wanted it so badly that for a second, all he could do was drop his face against her breast and suck futilely at the air. His cock throbbed and pulsed and roared for her, and she was digging her heels into his ass and trying to drag him up to fit with her.

“Richard,” she growled.

He lifted his face and crawled up her body, tugging the camisole out from under her armpits and over her head. She writhed and threw it off the bed, lifted up to wrap her arms around his neck.

“Fuck me. Now,” she whispered.

Rick groaned and bit the edge of her collarbone, found the tense line of her inside thigh to spread her open for him. She whined his name and bumped her hips up into him, as if that would help, but he found her sex again with his thumb, guided his cock to that heat.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, oh, yes. Damn it, Rick.”

He pushed inside her - all in one thrust - and she moaned with that long, low sound that seemed to stretch the moment out into forever.

When he was close, so deep and close, she curled her limbs around him and trembled, her cheek pressed against his.

“Oh, love,” he whispered, unable to hold it back. He began to thrust, a deep rhythm that struck something in them both he thought, he hoped; fuck, it was good.

It was so good. Surely she felt that too?

“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, baby. Please.”

Castle was on his elbows and knees now for the leverage, pushing deeper, finding her, meeting her, and she kept gripping him - all over - his cock, his hips, his shoulders, his neck. She chanted a breathless plea into his ear, her body growing tight, every thrust hitting her right, winding her up.

She gasped and went rigid; he found his place and rocked faster, sloppy, desperate, and she screamed as she shattered through his own climax, her orgasm drawing his out by the roots.

\-----

He laid on his back with Beckett sprawled at his side, somehow both of them still riding the wave of that last one. He could go again, easily, just have her stroke him with her hand and he’d be ready, but it was really nice like this, just tumbling down the last edges of glory.

She curled onto her side and rolled into him, her forehead coming to his bicep and her eyes closing. Castle lifted his arm and found the tendrils of her hair, combed through it, scratching at her scalp as his own eyes closed. She felt hot with sex, that liquid heat that seemed to shift between their bodies, skin through skin, and with her hair tickling his arm, it stirred... something. His cock, his heart, something.

He was most himself here. Castle, the man he’d invented to give her something more than lies. Rick, the shortened name she’d given him when Richard was too scathing.

Lying in the humidity of their sex, melted to the sheets, her body heated and stuck to his.

She laughed.

His eyes popped open and there she was, burying her laugh into his ribs high under his arm.

“What’re you laughing at?” he grumbled. Ticklish where her lips were.

“You purr.”

“What?”

“You purr, Rick. Like a baby cat.”

“What? No.”

She hummed and wriggled in closer, her arm slung across his torso and her fingers trailing cool fire along his nipples. “You do, kitten. You purr.”

“The fuck you say,” he growled.

“Kittens growl like that too, kinda whimpery because they’re so-”

“You shut up,” he muttered, squeezing her neck in the crook of his arm, dragging her tighter against him.

She laughed again, her mouth smothered in his side, but she slid her knee up and over his hip so that her shin brushed his cock. “Oh, nice. Getting it up again, huh? Just for me.”

“You touch me and it’s like a fucking reflex.”

“Literally,” she snorted.

He laughed too then, tilting his chin down to look at her, and she was happy. She looked happy. He wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen her happy before. Sick, grief-stricken, coming, intense - all of those things. But just lying here, happy?

“You’re beautiful,” he said then, letting it out of his mouth.

He stroked his fingers in her hair and watched her lift her head from his arm, her eyes clouding. Wary.

“You are,” he insisted. “You’re really beautiful, Kate. And not just hot, but...”

She pressed her palm to his chest and leaned in over him, kissed him softly at the corner of his mouth. “Thanks. That’s - sweet, Castle. Weird. But sweet.”

“And you’re calling me by my last name again,” he chuckled, dispelling the awkwardness of that moment.

She looked grateful. “Can’t help it. Holdover from work. Plus you do it too. Call me Beckett.”

“Yeah, ditto.” He grinned and shrugged his shoulder, all of it crooked. “I guess it’s okay then. Doesn’t mean we’re weird.”

She flicked his ear, narrowed her eyes. She flopped back to the bed, his arm her pillow.

Castle hadn’t been real until she’d made it real. And the more she said it, the more real it was, the more he wanted to be Castle. This.

He combed his fingers in her hair again, watched the way she settled, her eyes fighting sleep like she wanted to stay up with him.

“Sleep,” he said quietly. “You got time. We got time.”

“Only the weekend,” she sighed. “Don’t wanna waste it with sleep.”

“The whole weekend,” he promised. “We’ll fuck all you want, baby.”

“Wake me up when you want it,” she murmured, already dropping off.

He grinned and curled his fingers through her hair, skimmed her jaw, curling strands behind her ear.

And then he heard it too.

Fucking purring.

Shit.


	2. Chapter 2

Uh-oh.

That was his phone.

Damn it.

Castle tried not to wake her, but she roused when he had to pull his arm out from under her head, and she startled into awareness when the heat of his body left her side. She grunted something and reached to grab his thigh, but he slid out of bed.

“My phone. I have to,” he murmured at her temple.

She groaned and he hopped over her pillow on the floor to race out of her bedroom, still naked, searching for his coat. He found it over the back of her couch, dug through the pockets until he snagged his phone with two fingers.

“This is Agent Castle,” he answered. “I’m in stand-down position-”

“Richard,” the voice interrupted. His father. “Richard, we’re monitoring movement in the group.”

“Movement?” he choked. “No. They said two weeks.”

“It’s going down Monday night. Reliable intel.”

“No. No, I’m your reliable intel,” he snarled into the phone.

“Richard.” The name was said in warning but he knew he heard notes of surprise as well. He’d never snapped at his father like that before.

Richard sank down onto her couch, buried his head in his hand.

“Yes, sir,” he said finally. “Monday - Monday night.”

“What - exactly - are you doing in stand-down anyway? What have you been doing when you run off to New York?”

His throat went dry and he lifted his chin as he heard Beckett come down the hallway. She was shrugging his t-shirt on over her head and he instantly, deeply regretted it.

He’d have to take it off of her, and not in the way he loved.

She saw his face and paused in the hallway.

“Nothing, sir,” he said finally. “It’s nothing. Just wanted to keep my head clear of it. After - after what happened with Colleen.”

“Ah, yes, I see. I suppose that’s wise. But why New York? Why not hop over to London, Richard?”

“New York?” he rasped, staring at Kate. “No special reason, sir. Might as well be London. Would you rather I stuck closer?”

“So long as you make this Monday meeting, I don't care where you crash.”

“I’ll be there,” he said firmly.

But of course, his father had already hung up.

He tossed his phone onto the couch cushions and scraped his hand down his face, growling at nothing, and then he lifted his gaze to her.

Kate stood in the middle of her hallway with her fingers splayed, her knees pressed together and so gorgeous, so long and beautiful. He ached.

Fuck, he shouldn’t have just laid there; he should’ve dragged one last orgasm out of her before now.

“Baby,” he sighed, getting to his feet.

She lifted her chin, and then she reached down and gripped the hem of his shirt, pulled it off over her head in one smooth movement. “Guess you need this.”

She held it out to him, and he came to take it from her with a grimace. Their fingers brushed but she withdrew her hand.

She turned and sauntered back down the hall to her bedroom. He stared for just a second, but she came right out with his pants and boxers, his socks, and she dumped them all at his feet.

“Lock it on your way out, Richard.”

He watched her disappear behind her bedroom door, and then he angrily jerked on his clothes, haunted by the heat of her against his side, still smelling her on his skin.

\-----

He was jogging down the block with an arm raised for a taxi when he realized.

His phone.

Fuck it all to hell. He’d left his damn phone back at her apartment.

Rick grunted and dropped his arm, pivoted on the sidewalk to turn back for her building. Power stride to the front door, unlock it with the key he'd copied (stolen), and then slip through the lobby once more. The backpack was snug on his shoulders, making it easy to take her steps two at a time, ever upwards, heading for her apartment.

He wished he weren't, but he couldn't leave his Castle ID burner here, out in the open.

Shit. It'd been bad enough packing up his stuff in the absolute silence of her living room, knowing she was nodding off to sleep again in her bedroom, all naked and warm and gorgeous. But now he had to turn around and go back in there, and not fuck her again.

Again.

He’d leave it - the phone - but he didn’t want Kate answering it and his father on the other end looking into his crash pad whereabouts. Holy shit, that would be bad. That would be bad.

His father already chuckled at him when he called himself Agent Castle. Like it was a joke. Like Castle had hit his rebellious teenaged years.

Rick Castle wasn’t a joke. He was a man, this man climbing the stairs and heading back to her apartment, the man who made Kate Beckett come. (And happy. He’d made her happy tonight, hadn't he?)

He always kept that with him, even as he was forced to shed Rick Castle when he left this city. He kept this intense time with her like a talisman against the false Irish nights; this time, he would picture her laugh as she had insisted he’d been purring.

One of the pubs on his street sold these stupid fridge magnets made of clay and shit. Probably for tourists, if they ever wandered lost. There was a magnet of a cat right on the register - he’d have to get her that and bring it back with him, stick it on her fridge one weekend and surprise her. She’d laugh at that too; he could almost picture the way she’d find it and raise her eyebrow at him for being ridiculous. Purring.

Castle liked knowing there was something to hang on to.

He had her key out of the side pocket of his backpack and scraping into into the lock, twisting the knob even as he unlocked it, anxiety spiking for reasons he didn't understand.

He pushed inside the door and headed straight for his phone, turning his head towards her bedroom to call out to her in case she’d heard him.

But she was standing right there in the hall.

“Fuck,” she groaned, both hands coming up to hide her eyes.

She'd been crying; she was crying. Dressed now in one of her own t-shirts and a pair of plaid pajama pants, Kate hunched her shoulders and turned around, headed back for her bedroom. Slammed the door.

“Kate,” he choked. But no words came out after. Nothing could.

She was crying? She was - he couldn’t - he had to leave.

She was crying.

He ducked towards the couch and snagged his phone, shoved it roughly into his pocket and started down the hallway, his heart thundering.

But he stopped. Stopped still only a foot from her closed bedroom door, rooted to the spot.

Her door was shut, the light off. It was purposefully silent on the other side, the room cold and closed against him.

That whole display with his clothes in the hallway, that whole fine, I’m going back to bed, see yourself out. What had happened to that? They were supposed to be cool; that was her fucking rule. What happened to being cool?

There were no good-byes, no kiss before he left, leave as he came, leave it as he'd found it.

Those were the fucking rules.

Shit.

Shit.

He wanted in that room, past that door.

But no way in hell she was letting him now.

And he had a fucking plane to catch.

\-----

Nothing went down on Monday. He spent the day with his weapon cradled in his hands, expecting a raid, and nothing happened. He was in such a fucking lousy mood, he blew a damn hole in the wall. So fucking what? The crew looked at him like he was batshit and it helped his cover and the fucking wall wasn’t hurt or anything.

She wouldn’t answer his phone calls.

Nothing had gone down on Monday, despite his father's 'solid' intel.

She wasn't answering the damn phone.

They all knew it too. His striapach was fucking other men, they said. He'd blown it with this one, they said.

Could be true for all he knew.

Damn it.

The hole in the wall of the bar wasn’t nearly big enough, but he resisted putting his black, steel-toed boot through it, and instead he did what every good Irishman did. He fucking drank.

Hard.

Long.

All night and into the next morning.

It barely made a dent, but he let himself feel shitfaced, and he let himself act shitfaced, and then he pretended he had no idea why he’d fucking shot up the bar.

They dragged his ass home and laughed and slapped his cheeks, dumped him on the pallet, and told him to roll over if he puked.

He called her when they abandoned him, left a message on her answering machine. Hey, baby, please - I just - please call me back. I’m not drunk, I swear, I’m just on a job, but it would be better if I could - if I knew.

He hung up with a groan, knowing he was a fucking idiot, but he still gripped the phone in his hand and willed it to ring.

He slept and woke, slept and woke to stare up into the darkness, and then he called her again and she still didn’t answer and then something that must be a fucking hangover hit him and he felt sweaty and wired and the boys came back for him, took him back to the bar for another round.

He called every day.

\-----

Two weeks later, they were setting up spikes on the highway leading to the British federal building, all of them soaked to the skin in the pouring rain. The raid was going down just as they'd planned it, not as his father had insisted, and Castle's adrenaline was thrumming. He loved this feeling; it made it almost okay that he hadn't heard from Beckett in two weeks. He and his crew laid in wait, drinking and telling jokes about the fucking British government, getting shushed by the crew leader, trying not to get too drunk, too wet.

And then the spikes punched through a cavalcade of official cars, and it was on.

A crazy riot of yelling and laughter and rain, thunder in the distance and gunshots, pale British faces in the darkness, the wild energy of a raid.

They robbed their asses blind and trussed the pasties in their own ties. Got more than a few good weapons.

Castle chucked all of the keys into a swampy ditch, but palmed one pair, took a drag on a cigarette in celebration. He slowly worked his way back to one of the more subdued security agents and dropped the keys in the mud between the guy’s knees. Stomped on the keys to cover them up, draw attention to the movement. If they'd done this right, the security agent knew he was deep cover, and wouldn't fucking blow the whole thing.

With a lot of bluster and bragging and tormenting, Castle convinced his idiot crew members to rip the ski masks off their heads and celebrate with pissing contests. Both kinds - drinking and urinating - and of course, someone had brought a carload of shit, and out came the beer and a dog - where the hell had the dog come from? - and they were shooting their fucking pistols into the air and hollering at the storm.

Castle was carefully planted behind the lead car when the security agent got his helpfully loose tie unknotted and drew his weapon and started firing. Before the crew knew what was coming, five of his boys went down with gut shots (fuck, that was unnecessarily fucking brutal), and another screamed bloody fucking murder as he raced for one of their own cars.

Castle was right behind him and the dog too, and soon the wolf-mutt was racing ahead and veering off through the trees, like some kind of crazy fucking idiot. Castle followed, of course; he didn't know why. Only that the damn dog was running straight for the storm, and five of his guys had just been shot in the stomach, each one, like some kind of fucking vendetta hit.

Shit. He should've gone in the car. Gotten in with Mikey and Russell and the others. On foot was a fucking stupid choice, opting out of the car was-

A good fucking thing.

Because the second Castle hit the trees, the security agent pulled a fucking hand grenade and lobbed it at the crew's escaping vehicle.

The truck exploded in a fireball that made even the dog turn around and howl.

This wasn't turning into a fucking 'arrest and detain' raid. This was a damn massacre.

Castle raced past the fucking dog, snagged the trailing leash, and kept going.

The fucking security agent hadn't even fucking checked to see if their deep cover agent was in the fucking car, or one of those gut shot on the ground moaning. Castle had fucking dropped the keys right in the fucking asshole's face and this was the repayment?

Or had his father not told them he'd be there?

Fuck.

Castle yanked and the dog got pulled along behind him. Soon they were pacing each other, darting through the forest, listening to the sound of the car roaring with flames far behind them.

Fucking hell. No wonder Foley’s stupid henchmen were Irish nationalists with long rap sheets for gun smuggling. Their British overlords were aiming for the gut and throwing hand grenades on a fucking set-up raid. All Castle’s crew had done was flatten a few tires, truss them like turkeys, and then made them watch while the boys pissed into their fancy cars. They'd stolen some weapons and rubbed the government's noses in it, and they'd been met with devastating force.

And Castle had handed them over.

The dog was silent at his side as they ran, its paws making not a whisper across the forest floor.

Damn dog had saved his life.

\-----

When Castle finally made it back to their shitty shared apartment, he gathered what he could and was out the door, hiding with crew member’s girlfriends. And the fucking dog.

He had a weird sick feeling in his guts that he’d been set up.

He checked the new phone when he got it set up, found Beckett had called him back and left a terse, tight message. I got called onto a Vice case. Not here most nights because I’m doing my fucking job. You drunk dial me again, Richard, you won’t hear from me - period.

He hadn’t been drunk, but he realized it’d come out badly. He called her back and got her cell phone’s voice mail, and he couldn’t figure out what to say, so he hung up.

He was stuck with the dog. It didn’t have a name that he could discover and he didn’t want it to have a name; he wanted it gone.

The only other survivor of their highwayman-gone-wrong was a weasel-faced twenty year old who still had acne and couldn’t hold his tongue. Too jittery to make it. Police picked him up after three days, and now Castle was good to go. He was contacted by the station chief in Dublin to bide his time until they could slide him in with another group of Foley’s, but in the meantime - lay low, asshole.

Thank fuck.

He wanted out of here.

He’d take the weekend - take the week - and spend it with Beckett. Then he’d find a new crew in Dublin to start this whole shitty thing all over again, hopefully work his way up to Foley himself. It’d take years for that, of course, and in the meantime, Beckett.

A week of fucking might make up for having to leave last weekend, right?

He crated the dog and sent the thing on ahead to London, arranged for pick-up with an elite pet agency.

\-----

He gave his father the status update and Black agreed with the station chief that it was time to hide out for a while, until the furor died down. ‘Michael’ was a wanted man. Which meant good things for his credibility with Foley’s organization. Going to ground was an all-around smart next step.

But not so long that you lose your chance.

Of course not. Castle told his father he was headed to London and going off-grid, and his father acknowledged without another comment.

He flew to London, just as he’d said, and then he pulled out every damn trick in the book and he disappeared.

He changed clothes in the bathroom of the metro stop at Heathrow, donned a loose jacket that made him shapeless, and sank a tweed driving cap on his head. He left the restroom and blended with the crowd, took a train heading away from Heathrow.

He got out at Luton Airport, bought a ticket to Antwerp with one of his CIA-known legends, left the airport, got back on the metro. Back at Heathrow, he claimed the crated dog, left for him at the first class concierge station only an hour ago, and he bought a cargo spot on a flight to NYC, slated to arrive thirty minutes after Castle would get there.

Hopefully.

He hadn’t known what else to do with the dog, and even though he hadn’t told his father about the wolf-mutt, traveling with it was too conspicuous.

He got back on the metro and this time he stopped at City Airport in central London, bought his ticket to New York City on one of the new credit cards.

New cover ID, too. A legend no one had ever seen before.

It’d come to him about four weeks ago that he’d been loudly proclaiming himself Agent Castle to his father, but he’d never said a word about Rodgers. In fact, he was pretty sure that his father believed that Castle had no idea what his mother’s maiden name ever was, that his life before five years of age was still a blank.

But Kate had dragged those memories out of him somehow, his time with her. So if he had to contact her as Rick Rodgers, he could do that, and she would know.

His father couldn’t track him.

The passport was clean, the credit card untraceable, and Alex Rodgers boarded a flight for New York City.

\-----

He couldn’t figure out how to call her.

He roamed New York City aimlessly with a ghost of a dog at his side, and he couldn’t figure out how to call her.

He knew the number, right, yes, of course. But every time he thought about what to say, nothing smart came to mind except I really want to fuck you. And that sounded crass, even to him.

Even to the dog.

He wrapped a hand around its leash and tried to watch out for pedestrians and fire hydrants and whatever else an Irish wolfhound might be interested in.

“Oh, what a gorgeous Czechoslovakian wolfdog!”

Castle paused, lifted his gaze to the man now peering into the dog’s eyes. The pedestrian had both hands on his knees to get a look at the beast, and the mutt - Castle had to give the girl? credit - actually rolled her eyes back to Castle with a lifted eyebrow.

“He’s absolutely gorgeous,” the man raved.

Oh. He. Right.

“Is he a Search and Rescue? I saw on a message board they had a whole line of them shipped in to train here in New York.”

Castle nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”

“He’s very fine. So obedient. How old?”

“Four,” he guessed. The dog was pretty obedient; it had - he had managed to completely avoid the rush hour traffic and even now was calm and sitting regally at Castle’s side with his tongue panting and his ears pointed, but it didn’t seem the care about the crowd.

“Good age,” the man said. “Though I hear the bitches are easier to train than the males.”

“Yes, exactly,” Richard said into the sudden silence. “If you’ll excuse me. We’re late.”

He snapped his fingers and immediately the dog sprang up to go, trotting at Castle’s side as if they’d rehearsed it.

Shit, the snapping fingers had been a total guess. He didn’t even know the dog’s name.

And apparently not Irish. “Me either,” he murmured. “We’re both covert, huh? Well, let’s pray you win over Beckett.”

Yeah, he should’ve thought of that earlier. Women loved dogs, made all over them; it would be just fine.

\-----

He showed up at the apartment building and let himself inside the lobby with the key he’d stolen, but when he got upstairs to her door, he couldn’t do it.

The dog settled down to a sitting position at his side, tilted his head at the door.

“Yeah. I know.”

Castle rubbed his hand down his face and poised his fist to knock, hesitated.

The dog whined.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Still he couldn’t do it. He had a damn key - he’d never knocked before. But after last time, he didn’t know his place any longer and it churned in his guts.

It was ten o’clock at night. A strange man had accosted him over a damn wolfdog. Castle was now talking to said wolfdog.

He just wanted to know what his place was, where he stood.

She’d warned him, be cool, but he hadn’t been, and then neither had she, but there was no way she’d admit that and now he was afraid she’d rather kick him out than not be cool with him.

But he wanted them to be dorks together.

So he knocked on her door.

And waited. And waited.

The dog gave a sharp bark once to help, but still no one came to the door. He had a key. But he didn’t know.

He didn’t know.

He could only wait. Wonder.

Damn.

What the fuck was she doing out this late on a school night? For fuck’s sake, Beckett.

He gave the dog a look and the dog ignored him, sitting perfectly still and calm.

Shit.

\-----

After twenty-eight minutes, Richard finally heard feet on the stairs and the dog’s head swiveled to look, ears pricking up and then lying back, pointing towards the stairs again.

Kate Beckett came up onto the landing in her patrol uniform, her coat unzipped and the holster of her weapon just barely showing.

The dog whined and lowered to his front paws, lying flat before Beckett.

Castle found himself wanting to do the same - submit.

Beckett paused in the hallway at the top of the stairs, her hand dropping away from her weapon, and she looked instead at the dog.

He looked at her. Studied her. He had thought the patrol officers weren’t allowed to carry their weapons home with them; he’d thought she usually kept hers in the locker at the station. But she had mentioned getting roped onto a Vice task force. Maybe this was the protocol now.

She knitted her eyebrows together. “Where’d the dog come from?”

“A car got bombed,” he said, the words just rolling out of his mouth. “I’m supposed to lay low.”

“And you thought you’d do that here.”

His fingers felt nerveless around the dog’s leash; it was belly-crawling towards Beckett, tail slowly wagging across the floor. Beckett lowered her chin to look at the wolf.

“I covered my tracks this time,” he apologized. “He won’t know now. He won’t find out about you, I promise.”

Her shoulders stiffened and he realized how that had sounded.

He tried to fix it without pointing out she was being as not cool as he was. “I mean, my father’s vetting process is extensive and downright brutal, Beckett. And he doesn’t approve of - of this. He’s okay with recreation, but not more than once.”

“Recreation.”

“He thinks I’m in London, off the grid. Instead I’m here. For a week.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, letting go of the dog’s leash entirely. The beast bounded up off its belly - his belly - and ran right into Kate, pressing hard and whining for a touch.

Kate ignored it.

He held up his phone. “And this? This is going off. Completely.” With her standing there watching, Castle popped off the back and dug out the battery, severing the phone from the world. And himself from his father.

Her fingers came out and scratched through the dog’s fur.

“What’s its name?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve just been calling it dog.”


	3. Chapter 3

He stood awkwardly in her kitchen while she changed out of her uniform. He didn’t think he was invited back for that, even though he really wanted to help strip things from her body.

The dog sat at his feet and looked up at him expectantly, but he didn’t know what for. Castle lifted a toe and tried to nudge the thing off of him, but the dog only stayed firm.

“He wants water. And food. Haven’t you fed it?”

“Ah.” He glanced over his shoulder and saw Kate standing in the hallway wearing a slinky black dress, impossibly high heels, and- “You cut your hair.”

She tilted her head.

“I - you - it’s short,” he rasped. His hands clenched in fists. “Are we going out?”

“Did you feed your damn dog, Richard?”

“No. Yes. Once.” At the claims desk the woman had given it water.

“Once.”

“I forgot,” he said. “Are we going out?”

“You’re not going anywhere. I have a job,” she said, walking past him so that those heels clicked sharply on the tile floor. She reached for a cabinet door and opened it, pulled out a shallow serving bowl. She shoved it against his chest. “Fill it with water. What’s with the hat?”

He reached up to touch the brim of his driving cap, juggled the bowl. “I was - being inconspicuous.”

“For a spy, you really suck at it,” she muttered, yanking the hat off his head. “Water your dog.”

“Will that make him grow?” he said suspiciously. “Cause he’s already too big.”

“It will keep him from making friends of strangers,” she sighed. “Belly-crawling towards me. Shit, Richard, have you cared for it at all?”

“I was trying to,” he said lamely. Tried for points. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

She took the dish from his hands and turned to the faucet, filled the bowl with water while she steadfastly ignored his blatant plea. Kate placed the bowl on the floor and the dog went to it immediately, lapping up water in a sloppy and desperate way.

Damn it.

Castle watched as Kate unhooked the leash and wound it up, placed it on her kitchen counter. She stroked the dog and talked to it under her breath - no doubt about him - and he stood there like an idiot, ashamed by how he’d taken care of it.

Of them both, her and the dog.

“Kate,” he called.

She turned her head up to him from the crouched position over the dog, and Castle sank down on his haunches as well.

“Can I - am I allowed to kiss you?”

She regarded him, her jaw tense, that black dress riding so high he caught the scrap of neon purple lace underwear. He wanted more than kissing her.

“I don’t know, Richard. Are you?”

He reached for her, gripped the back of her neck to pull her into him. Convince her. She fell forward onto her knees while he balanced them, took a kiss that was more desperate and broken than he meant it to be.

Nothing had been right since he’d left her crying.

He kissed her, and he poured himself into it, into making it good and rich and all those things they could be when they touched like this. He kissed her and he made it right again. He hoped.

She ran her fingers through his hair and held on, opening her mouth for him, and then she pushed him back against the cabinets and straddled his lap, her kiss hot and hungry and pissed. So fucking angry with him.

He took it. Better than the indifference, which fucking wounded. He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her into his hips, made her moan. She broke from his mouth and scored a line of kisses down his jaw to his neck, bit hard so that he bucked under her.

The dog whined and laid down at his side, licking his forearm, wriggling closer, and Kate pushed back, a startled laugh.

“I have to go,” she muttered, shaking her head. “I have to go.”

She put her hand to his mouth when he leaned in for more, closing her eyes against him.

“Kate.”

“I have to go.” She kept her eyes closed, her hand on his lips, and he touched his tongue to her fingers. “No, no. I have - work. It’s work. A club - undercover. I have to go.”

“I can come with you,” he murmured. “I’m very good at working undercover.”

Her eyes popped open and she stiffened, a withdrawal happening that he hadn’t seen coming, didn’t understand.

“Kate. I won’t be anyone other than some guy who wants to hit on you all night, dance with you close. Use me as a blind. Let me be with you. I just - I missed you.”

Her shoulders slumped and her hand fell to the dog’s head, rubbing the fur even as she avoided his gaze.

“I missed you, Kate. So much. You wouldn’t answer my calls.”

Still she said nothing, her eyes dark and unfathomable. He didn’t know her at all; he wasn’t sure he had ever really known her.

He dipped forward and laid his forehead at the top of her chest, his eyebrow hitting her collarbone, and he hung on to her, pressing closer. “Please let me come,” he murmured.

And he knew what it sounded like, knew he was echoing her own lines back to her, and that she’d hear it. How they were in bed, what that feeling was like.

Her fingers came to the hair at his nape, petting like she had the dog. “The hat stays here,” she husked.

\-----

"You can't wear that," she muttered. "Come on, seriously. Aren't you supposed to be good at this?"

"Jeans and a t-shirt will blend in most every-"

"Okay, you're cute. You really are. But you're kind of clueless," she said, and it was snarky and there was some dark anger still simmering below her words. But he didn't care. Because she wasn't leaving him behind.

"We don't really have time for this," he muttered.

"I just need to be there before midnight. After one, they shut the doors to the public. There are - supposedly - high stakes poker games going on. I just need a chance to attach myself to a player."

"Attach yourself?"

"I'm letting you watch," she said sharply. "Don't fuck this up for me."

He closed his mouth and watched her rifle through her closet for something appropriate for him. But she was coming up empty - and he liked what that said. No male shirts, no other guy's stuff hanging in her closet. Did she think there would be? Had she - had Royce been here while he was gone?

The dog whined again and pressed against the back of Castle's legs. He turned around and stepped away from it, frowning. "What's going on with this dog?"

"Probably has to go out. We'll take him out, get some dog food, and find you some damn clothes. Shit. I can't be late for this."

"I told you - jeans and t-shirt-"

"If you hope to stay - at all - then you're going to need to dress the part, Richard. Come on. Let's take the poor wolf out to pee."

"Oh. Need the leash, right?" Castle jogged back to the living room even though he liked being in her bedroom much better. He didn't know what he'd thought would happen. He'd knock on her door and she'd throw herself at him and they'd fuck like rabbits until he had to leave?

Now there was the damn dog to take care of and this undercover thing for Vice and her body in that short black dress. He couldn't get the mental picture of that neon purple underwear out of his head. He'd have to - have to do something about it soon.

Kate and the dog were coming down the hall when he turned back, so he leaned over and clipped the leash onto the collar. The dog licked his fingers and wrist nervously, whining again, shifting on its feet.

"Come on, quickly," Kate said. "Take him outside."

"Me?"

"Your dog," she snapped. "And I have to find a coat. Where's yours?"

"I don't need one."

"Richard, fucking hell. Why is it that you have no idea how to blend in with normal human beings? We'll buy you a damn coat on the way."

She stomped off down the hall and the dog whined again, leaning for the door but not actually pulling on the leash. He thought he could hear her mutter more trouble than it's worth and he wasn't sure if that was about him or the dog.

"At least you're housebroken," he muttered. A coat. He didn't want a coat, but it would hide his gun, so at least there was that.

He found his weapon in its holster and checked it, but realized he couldn't possibly get in the club with such an obvious bulge. "I hope you're packing heat!" he yelled back to her.

"Go walk the damn dog!"

Fine.

\-----

He supposed it was cold out here; she shivered when she met him on the sidewalk in front of her building, holding out a plastic bag with that patented look of disgust.

"What's that for?" he said.

"Dog shit, Richard." Kate Beckett was not in a good mood.

He realized - with a bolt of actual intelligence - that Kate Beckett was horny. She wanted him. And she didn't want to want him.

Well, his night just got a whole lot better.

He grinned and took the plastic bag from her even while the dog nosed around the lone tree cemented off in front of her building. The crinkle of plastic made the dog lift its head and he was off, heading for some spot he'd already marked out, apparently.

Kate chuckled, bundled in her black trench coat and gloves, and followed along at his side as he was led by the dog. "Our options are limited this late at night, so I asked someone to bring you over some clothes."

"Royce," he growled.

"No," she muttered. "Not him."

He glanced over at her and saw the flame of heat in her cheeks, the wound in her eyes. He didn't know whether it was good or bad that she'd looked more wrecked over Castle leaving last time than she did over whatever had happened with Mike Royce.

That he knew it - that he saw the wound - was something he hadn't been expecting either.

The leash was tangled around his hand but he searched for her fingers with his own. He hooked his pinky over hers, and they walked side by side like that, caught together, not quite committed to it. Neither acknowledging it.

The wolf hunched over a pop-art sculpture sandwiched between two buildings; the shit that came out of him was massive.

Castle stared at it. "What the hell?"

"When you fed him - if you fed him, Castle - what did you feed him?" she laughed.

"Steak," he shrugged, frowning down at the dog who was scratching his back paws against the concrete as if to bury it.

"Steak?" she echoed. Kate went still and he turned to look at her, saw her studying him with something fragile at the back of her eyes. She took the plastic bag from his hand and covered her fingers with it, stooped down to scoop up the dog's shit.

Shame burned through him, and Castle reached for it, but she elbowed him off, turned the bag inside out around the dog poop. She tied it off quickly - all without even touching it - and then she tossed it into the trash can just inside the little artist's alley.

"You fed the dog steak," Kate said softly. She was rubbing her thumb against her fingers over and over, as if she couldn't quite shake the feeling of dog shit in a plastic bag. "Of course you did. It's all or nothing with you, isn't it?"

"What does that mean?" He reached out and took her hand, showed he was brave by pressing his lips to her fingers. She wrinkled her nose, drew her head back from him.

"Gross. Castle. That is gross."

"You were only touching the bag."

"But still." She rolled her shoulders and shuddered, reached for the leash. "Come on, back inside. He'll be here soon."

"Who?" he asked, following her to the building's front door.

"My first sparring partner."

\-----

When the dog trotted inside ahead of them, Castle put his hand to the small of her back and clutched at the belt of her trench coat. She turned and glanced at him; he tugged the knot of the belt and unraveled it.

“Castle,” she muttered, frowning at him.

He pulled open her trench coat by the lapels and dragged her towards him, watching the way her thigh appeared from under that black dress. The material was shimmery and made her look like she was still moving, like her muscles rippled under that tight, smooth skin. He dropped one hand and stroked her thigh, slipped right under that skirt.

“Cas-Castle,” she gasped. “He’ll be here - soon.”

“I got time,” he murmured. “You come fast when you’re horny, Beckett.”

She groaned, but didn't deny he was right. Already he felt the heat of her against the back of his hand. He knew how to do this too, knew how to get her there so fast she barely had time to realize, and it involved a long, slow build to that burst of flame.

His fingers trailed circles along her inside thigh.

“What - what are you doing,” she mumbled.

“Giving you what we both need,” he said softly. Her mouth opened but nothing else came out, and he skimmed his hand higher up her skirt to find the thin scrap of purple thong.

“Oh, oh,” she moaned. Her head dropped forward and hit his chin, so he flicked the nail of his thumb over the lace and made her hips buck.

“Yeah, baby, just like that,” he whispered. He wrapped his other arm around her shoulders to hold her up, and he slid his thigh between her knees to give her a little support. “I love how hot you are.”

“Mm, I’m hot?” she murmured.

“Feel that?” he answered. His knuckles dragged over her panties, the movement abrading his skin. Her forehead rolled on his chin and her hands came to his biceps to grip him.

“Feels good,” she groaned.

“Feels hot,” he reminded her. “Feels like you’re wet for me beneath that lace, love. Are you wet for me?”

“For you?”

“I know it's for me,” he growled. “I’m the one touching you.”

She grunted something that sounded like a curse and he hooked a finger in the crotch of her panties, tugged a little, giving her some air. She moaned and her hips came up.

“You gonna admit it, Kate? How wet you are for me?”

“Why don’t - don’t you slip inside and find out?” she growled.

He hummed in appreciation, dabbled his fingers just above her cunt. He kissed her and rubbed his cheek against her temple, let her feel the rasp of his scruff, reminding her of what it felt like between her thighs.

She sucked in a breath and tightened her hold on him, so he tugged a little harder on her purple underwear.

“Get the fuck on with it,” she growled.

“Oh? But I thought your - friend - would be here soon.”

“Exactly,” she hissed. “You better not leave me hanging, Rick Castle.”

“I like it when you call me Rick,” he grinned. And in reward, he dipped a finger into her sex.

She groaned and ground her hips down into his touch, crushing her own clit against his finger. He shifted to keep her standing and circled slowly through her folds.

“Oh, you are wet, love. So wet for me.” He feathered his fingers over those lips, skimming back to her ass.

“Fuck,” she gasped.

“I wish. But you said not much time,” he murmured. He lowered his mouth to the top of her cheekbone and nipped at the skin, hoping to mark her so that he could see it when they were out, know he’d done that to her.

“You should - should speed this up,” she grunted.

“Oh, but slow is so much more fun.” He slid his fingers through her sex, around and around, lifted his other hand to grip the back of her neck. She was panting now, a harsh sound against his cheek, and she was thrusting her hips hard against his hand. He curled his fingers and pushed towards her clit.

“No, no, no,” she chanted. “Up, in. Push inside me, Rick. I need - I need you inside me.”

“Fuck,” he groaned. He angled his hand and thrust two fingers inside her. She moaned and worked this dirty rhythm up on her toes, her cunt contracting on his fingers. He wished so fucking badly it was cock, wanted her so much.

Kate hooked her arm around his neck and violently crushed her body against his, coming apart with a whine that got trapped in her throat, her orgasm rough and complicated around his fingers.

“You are so fucking hot,” he gasped at her cheek, dropping his head to find her mouth. He sucked on her tongue to drag her through the rest of it, and she moaned around him, a liquid heat that had his cock so hard he thought he’d break.

When their kiss fell apart, she stared at him. She looked confused, like she'd made herself promise not to do this.

And then her door buzzed and jarred them both, his fingers slipping out of her, making Kate gasp.

Her head dropped to his shoulder and she gripped him by his waist, leaning hard. “Fuck,” she groaned.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “You’re good.”

“Fuck, my father is on his way up.”

“Holy shit. I thought you said your first sparring partner.”

"He's the one I fight with the most."

\-----

“Your dad?” he groaned.

“Yes, now get your fucking hand out of my underwear.”

“You said some fucking partner - some hot, buff, sweaty guy who gets to grapple with you.”

“I was fucking with you, Castle,” she muttered, wrapping her hand around his wrist and yanking him out of her panties. “Verbal sparring. All my dad and I do is fight.”

He sighed and couldn’t help lifting his fingers to his lips, touching his tongue to her taste.

She made a noise that had his cock pulsing, and then she punched him hard in his pec and twisted his nipple. He yelped and she jerked her trench coat back around her body, tightened the belt.

“Knock it off,” she muttered. But he saw her eyes rake over his body, and yeah, okay, he was fucking hard for her. “Seriously, Castle. You can’t have an erection when my father gets here, so just - lay down.”

The wolf laid down in front of her couch, giving them a wide yawn that showed his teeth. Kate snorted and rolled her eyes.

“My cock’s not a dog,” he hissed back. “It doesn’t just lay down.”

“Well, make it,” she growled, shoving past him to unlock her front door.

He panicked - he was fucking hard and it wouldn’t disappear any time soon, not when he could still smell her, still remember the heat of her under his fingers, around his fingers. What the fuck had she been playing at, her dad coming to the apartment at any moment?

Richard remembered the look on her face, that confusion, how did I get here? Maybe she really hadn’t thought she’d let herself go down that path again.

Well, fuck, now he felt even better. That shriveled things - but only a fraction. He jerked towards the couch and snatched up his backpack, held it in front of himself.

Kate put her hands on her hips and laughed.

“It’s not funny,” he muttered.

“It kinda is, baby.”

“You just called me baby when we weren’t having sex,” he grinned, smiling wide as she blanched. “You like me, Beckett. Admit it.”

“You look like a moron, standing there with your backpack in this awkward little clutch. And your ears are pink.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled. She hadn’t meant to let him in tonight, but she had. She had anyway, against her own better judgment, against her dad stopping by any second.

Just then the knock came at the door, and Kate turned and opened it, still smiling. Her father was on the other side, a watery look on his face that Castle knew meant the man hadn’t yet settled in to the scotch. Still entirely too sober.

He blinked past Kate and nodded. “Rick.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and came forward, his cock deflated now that her father was in the room. He shook hands and dropped his backpack by the door, as if that had been his intent the whole time.

“You brought a dog this time,” Jim said. “So Katie tells me.”

“I - uh - yeah, I did,” he admitted, rubbing his hand over his jaw and gesturing to where the dog had gotten to its feet in the living room. “I have no idea what to do about it.”

“Just love it,” Jim said softly, his eyes on the wolf. “All you gotta do with a dog like that. Be yours for life.”

Kate made a sound that shot through Castle like an arrow, and he realized that she’d taken that to mean her.

“Yes sir, I can see that,” he answered tightly. “I promise I’ll take better care. I just didn’t know what I was doing.”

Her father glanced up at him, nodding as if to himself, and patted Castle on the shoulder. He moved past and headed for the dog, getting down on one knee and opening one of the plastic bags he’d brought with him.

“Hey there. I got you some food. You hungry?”

The wolf whined and nosed into the bag, and it actually made Jim chuckle.

Beside him, Kate’s caught breath and the way she leaned towards her father made him realize there was still so much brokenness, despite her father showing up here tonight.

“Dad,” she rasped. “Can you - can we - do you have clothes for Rick?”

“Yeah, right here, honey.” He stood again but he ignored them both, snapping his fingers at the dog and having it come right along his side for the kitchen. Jim was tugging the can of dog food out of the bag and searching through Kate’s drawers for the can opener.

“Dad,” Kate said. “Clothes. I’ve got to go soon.”

Her Dad nodded and pried open the lid, used a spoon to scrape the wet food out onto a plate. “It’s all here in the bag. Rick, you’re taller than me, but I think you’ll find something that will fit.” He finally glanced up and took a look at Castle. “Although, those shoulders... huh.”

Rick grinned at the look Kate tossed him, and he came forward to take the offered bag of clothing. “Thanks, I think. I’ll try on a few of these and find something-”

“No,” Kate interrupted, reaching past him for the bag. “I’ll find you something. Dad, thanks for the food. I’ll be late tonight, so if you want to stay and hang out - the place will be empty.”

Even Castle could hear the pathetic hope in her voice. Her father was purposefully not looking at them; he lowered the plate to the floor and sweet talked the dog as it wolfed down the food.

Castle took Kate’s wrist in quiet command as she opened her mouth; he shook his head in warning. “We need to go.” And that won’t help him any, sweetheart.

“Fine,” she rasped. But all of her anger was gone; it was only a sadness in her voice that made it so rough. “Let’s find you a shirt that somehow makes you not look like a soldier.”


	4. Chapter 4

The sleeves were too short and the shoulders extremely tight. He couldn’t flex his pectorals or else he’d seriously rip some seams, but Kate said it was exactly the look she was going for.

“Look, we’ll roll up your sleeves, and I promise when you get in there - you’ll see every other dirtbag ready to pop out of their shirts.” Her fingers were light around his wrist as she began folding back the cuffs.

He watched the top of her head as she bowed over his arm, working to roll up his sleeves. Her hair was just so different like this - straightened and spiky at the ends where they brushed the tops of her shoulders. A few weeks ago it had been those waves to her shoulder blades, and even though she had always kept it in a knot at her neck, he had taken pleasure in knowing he was the one to watch it cascade down her back.

This was more professional, less like the college co-ed, more of the working woman. He wondered if she’d gone on a shopping spree, bought items that reflected where she wanted to be rather than who she currently was. Tailored dress pants that hugged her ass and jewel-toned dress shirts, a few of those silk sheaths to wear under her blazer when it was hot outside. As if she had already made detective when she was only a patrol officer.

And after her shopping spree, the haircut. Chop it all off, he bet she had said, scowling at herself in the mirror, unwilling to wait a moment longer.

Had this been the compromise? The stylist had refused, but had given her this look instead, some form of the hard-nosed, bad-ass detective she wanted to be.

Her fingers were so soft brushing against his forearm. She moved to the other cuff and folded it back, not meeting his eyes.

Castle lifted his free hand and caught the sharp edge of her hair, felt the product making it even stiffer. She lifted her head and her gaze snapped to his; he rubbed his thumb over the end and dragged it across her cheek.

“You look stunning,” he murmured. Painfully stunning, her cheekbones highlighted so viscerally that they could slice through his guts if he wasn’t careful.

He thought maybe he’d already missed the boat on that one.

“You’re just distracted by the dress,” she muttered, rolling his cuff back and letting go of him, stepping out of his reach.

“By the dress? No. Kate, fuck, that dress is hot, but you - you are just impressive. Every time I see you it’s like I’ve never seen you before. Socks me in the gut.”

She ignored him, turning away to grab her father’s leather jacket. She thrust it into his chest.

“No, I won’t need it,” he said, shaking his head. “Plus, you said it’s Russian mob. They won’t respect me on their turf no matter what I wear. I need to be able to move.”

She lowered her hands, a flicker of something in her eyes, but then she nodded and replaced the jacket in the shopping bag. “I think you’re ready.”

He stepped forward and caught a hank of her hair again, the stiff ends against his fingers. “One more thing,” he said, rubbing those spikes along her own neck. “I need gel or mousse. I know you have some.”

“Why?” she said suspiciously.

“Russian mob, right? I know a few things. Now give me a few minutes to do my hair.”

A laugh popped out of her mouth but she clamped her lips shut and shook her head. “Fine. I’m going to say good night to my dad. Do... whatever.”

\-----

“Are you sure the dog will be okay alone?” he said on the street. He hurried to catch up as she scooted into the backseat of a taxi.

“If you don’t shut up about the dog,” she muttered. She leaned forward and barked the address to the driver, then turned to him. “You didn’t even know to feed it, Richard. You can’t suddenly get all concerned about leaving it alone.”

“Him,” he said absently. Slammed the door. “But it’s never been alone. They’re pack animals.”

“He’ll be alone only about six hours. He’ll probably sleep.”

“I wish your dad had stayed with him,” he frowned. And then it hit him and he groaned, tilting his head back against the seat. He could actually feel her bristling beside him and he blindly reached out and grabbed her hand. “Sorry. That was thoughtless. Fuck, I’m an asshole. Kate, love, of course I wish he’d stayed, but - oh, shit.”

She wriggled her hand out from his and shrugged at him. “Don’t worry about it. He's always gonna drink. Nothing can change that.”

He lifted his head from the back of the cab’s seat. “No, that’s not acceptable. Here I am wasting my energy on a damn dog-”

“No,” she said. Her fingers flipped and caught his wrist, like she simply wasn’t able to take his hand, like it wasn’t allowed. “No, the dog is - that’s important too.”

His eyebrows knit as he studied her in the slices of yellow street light. The cab moved in swift sudden darts through the city, giving her face the look of a haunted thing. “You’re more important than the dog,” he said. “And I’m sorry. Kate, I - I’m sorry.” For everything, for leaving her to cry in her room and not knowing what to do about it and thinking he could show up here with a dog.

Her gaze drifted away from him, her eyes dark even when the light was harsh across her face; she didn’t say anything, she wasn’t even looking at him, but he thought she understood.

They rode in silence. It wasn't a good one.

He just hadn’t known what to do, what to say. He’d left because the idea of waging war against Beckett herself - even for her own good - was so daunting that he couldn’t face it. And he had a job to do. She'd always said do your job, Richard. Be cool.

He’d had a miserable week without her. He never wanted to do that again, worry that she wouldn't be here when he came back. Worry he'd blown it.

He hated this silence.

Castle had just reached out to take her hand, to force the issue, when the car jerked and the cabbie swore violently, honking his horn at the traffic ahead, waving an arm.

Kate gave out a tight exhale like she was just coming back to herself, and she leaned forward, rapped hard on the glass. “Let us out here. It looks bad ahead; we’ll walk.”

She reached down the loose, cowled v-neck of her sparkly dress and peeled a credit card from her breast. Castle stared, and Kate pushed the card through the slot, nodding for him to get out.

He opened the door, but he still couldn’t quite believe that trick she’d just pulled. “Kate.”

“I know you hate credit cards, but this is for the job,” she muttered. “Just go already, Rick.”

He stepped out of the cab, reached down to hand her out. She slid the credit card back inside her bra and he seriously - fuck - he seriously wanted to go hunting for it later.

“Maybe you could buy me a drink,” he murmured.

“What?” she said, not looking at him as she headed down the sidewalk. “Come on - little farther south.”

They’d managed to get all the way into Brooklyn, and he figured it would only be a few more blocks. “Brighton Beach?” he asked. He’d been reading up on the boroughs of New York City and all its ethnic enclaves because he'd known so little when he'd met her. He was, ostensibly, working for the good of this democracy, and yet he had no idea how that democracy looked up close and personal. He had never been able to live it before her.

“Yeah, Brighton Beach,” she answered. “This way.”

“We should have taken the subway,” he said, eager to show off his new knowledge. “The B line. Gotten off at Ocean Parkway.”

She gave him a look over her shoulder and he took longer strides to catch up with her, grabbed her hand and kept it.

“You ever been to Coney Island?” he said. “I’ve never been. I thought-”

“Richard,” she snapped, her stride lengthening again. “You’re not a fucking tourist, okay? Can you just be cool?”

He closed his mouth and nodded, pressed the mute button on his eagerness. “Right. You’re right. I’m on it. I won’t let you down.” Yet, he couldn't help the thrill that zipped up his spine.

She sighed and stopped dead on the sidewalk - four people in the crowd had to part around her, giving her dirty looks. She waited for him, reached out purposefully and closed her fingers around his hand, her eyes on him.

“I know you’re excited,” she said softly. “But this is my job. I do this and I - I’m in the door with Vice. A big collar like this, it’s my fastest route to making detective.”

“Making detective,” he echoed, stunned by the revelation. She was only twenty-three and she could make detective that fast? He had known she was adamant about her job; he hadn't known she was just that good.

“I need this to go well tonight,” she said. They were standing in the middle of the sidewalk on one of the busiest avenues in Brooklyn, and she looked at him like no one else was even close. “I need you to - to back me up on this one, Rick, because I can’t have it fall apart.”

He lifted his hand and rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “I got your back. Nothing will fall apart. I promise.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded, averting her eyes, and he wondered if all of this was for the chance to make detective - the hair, the clothes, her brittle armor.

Or for something else.

He wanted to kiss her. Remind her of them. He wanted nothing else than to press his lips to hers and feel her breath skirt his cheek and the way her fingers tightened in his and the heat of her close.

But everything about her was shut off from him. She withdrew her hand from his and turned silently, heading up the street.

He stood alone a moment, and then he made his choice.

He followed her.

\-----

When Beckett stumbled in the narrow entrance to the club, he naturally grabbed her and held her up. She was staring at him, her eyes dark and wide.

Richard Castle had slid so easily into operative mode that he hadn’t realized he’d done it until this moment. He had easily talked their way past the two bouncers outside the door, and now she was looking at him like she'd never seen him before.

He gripped her by the elbow, keeping her on her high heels. “Steady.” He kept his voice pitched low as he snaked them through the narrow hall towards the open bar. “I think we should split up. I’ll stay back and drink while you work the room.”

She opened her mouth to fight him, but then frowned. “Actually. You’re right. But don’t - the vodka is potent-”

“I can handle it,” he said. More than she knew, probably; he'd have to explain that sometime soon. “You need to go. We shouldn’t be seen together.”

He nudged her forward and she actually glanced over her shoulder at him. Suddenly, she looked so young, so heartbreakingly young, that he almost went after her.

But he didn’t, and he wouldn’t. He knew how to do his job, and he wouldn't wreck hers either. She had already slipped into the crowd on the dance floor, her hips sliding into rhythm, her hands rubbing down her thighs. He watched for a long moment, the roll and fuck of her dancing, and then he headed for the bar, making sure he always had her in sight.

As she’d promised, every asshole at the bar was wearing the same tight dress shirt, bulging through the seams, and the moment he sat down, he had a girl sidling up to him. Pretty, too skinny, her lips thick and pouting - mouth of a porn star. She pursed those lips and winked at him, spoke in a Ukranian-accented Russian.

He answered in kind, leaving it open-ended, and she hung on his arm, reached past him to snag the vodka glass of the man beside him.

The big guy turned, breeding rage in those eyes. For about thirty seconds, it looked like a fight, but Castle casually insulted the man’s fat wife at home, offered up the skinny ass next to him, and then he and Mikhail were fast friends. They shared a couple shots and laughed loudly and gathered a crowed around them as they drank.

All the while, Castle kept his eyes on Beckett, watched her dance, caught glimpses of her hair flying or her eyes flirting or that mouth smiling for someone else. He didn't know entirely what she was doing here, but he had her back.

Mikhail laughed and shoved him hard, but Castle didn’t shift, rock hard and unmoving, and it broke, for a moment, the cover he’d been weaving. Mikhail’s laughter died, sudden dull sobriety, and he asked Castle another question, paused, and began to scan the room.

Castle hastily averted his eyes, not about to give her away, and he instead busted Mikhail’s balls for not taking the skinny slut to the back and showing her a good time. It was cruder in Russian.

A group of girls were trash-talking just to his right, fucking this and fucking whore that, and after a moment, he realized the skanky bitch they were pissed about was actually Beckett.

He grinned and lifted his eyes to her in the crowd, saw how she’d snagged the attention of every person here. The club was dim with purple-hazed light, and the smoke of cigars, cigarettes, and a few joints hung heavy just above their heads. She was dancing with a big tattooed guy that had been at the bar only a moment ago, and apparently that was one of those girls’s dates.

Ah, he’d interpreted that wrong. Not her date. Her job - she was an escort.

Castle cast her a swift look and reassessed. A hooker, nothing so high-class as a call girl. In fact, quite a lot of these women were call girls, escorts, or professional prostitutes.

Huh.

Beckett was working the floor like she was a call girl, and at first he had a sharp stab of pride - his partner out there doing her fucking job - but as he watched her grin, watched her lick her bottom lip and swivel her hips in time to a bass beat that pulsed in his cock, something darker leaked out from that pride. Something wounding.

He shifted back against the bar to see her better, swirled the vodka around in the shot glass. Mikhail was talking up the slutty blonde with the lips, and Castle was feeling the burn at the back of his throat even though vodka had never gotten to him before.

She was electric. Everyone was looking at her.

It wasn’t his fucking imagination. Every male was angling to get closer to her - except the ones at the bar who were mentally fucking her with their lecherous looks, too afraid to approach - and every female was mentally clawing her eyes out for being the hottest body in the place. Or maybe just the most reckless? She danced like she didn't care what happened to her, violence or pleasure.

The music throbbed, his cock throbbed, and every time she rubbed her body against some twenty-year-old asshole out there, Castle gripped the shot glass and got a little more twisted up.

He downed another and slammed it back on the bar, stood up from the stool. He avoided the laughing Mikhail who was trying to rope him into a double date with the girls, and he stalked out to the dance floor.

He cut a path through the gyrating, jumping bodies, the hard Russian pop scratching at the air. Beckett was one of those moving, pulsing, electric elements, her hair sharp and flying around her face, her eyes dark and dangerous and promising terrible, painful ecstasy.

He reached out and gripped a fistful of her slinky shift, dragged her into his body. She didn’t even miss a beat, only bumped her hips against his and gave him the devil’s own smile, lips parted and her tongue touching her teeth.

She ground against him, spun around to press her ass back into him. His cock surged immediately, responding to that siren’s call it knew so well, and he gripped her hips to guide her in a tighter, more intent rhythm.

So fucking hot. She was liquid desire, all sinuous movement and strength, the expanse of her back before his eyes. He lifted a hand and trailed a line down her spine, leaned forward to suck at her skin, nip the hard ridge of the bones at her neck.

She laughed at something and he realized she wasn’t laughing for him. His eyes jerked up from the purple-lit glow of her back, and he saw she was flirting with the man in front of her.

Castle wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her hard back into his chest; she whipped her head around and glared at him.

“Fuck off.”

“You heard her,” the younger guy said. His hair was slicked back with gel, his adam’s apple too prominent and bobbing as he sneered at Castle.

“I don’t share,” Castle snarled back and brought Kate off her feet, turning them both around and putting their backs to the asshole kid.

He spread his fingers out over her belly and ground her ass back into his cock, reminding her of where he’d been, where he was going to be. She hummed something that he could feel rather than hear over the music, and he stroked her hip through the dress, moving his hand to her inside thigh; he could swear she was wet for him.

She groaned and her body sped up, writhing like she had when she’d come apart beneath him their first time, writhing and moaning and breathless.

He wanted to fuck her. He had to have her. Now. No one else in his way.

Castle wrapped both arms around her and sucked on her neck, bit the curve of her shoulder, gripping her dress in his fists and inching it up her hips. He pushed her towards the darker shadows at one side of the dance floor, let a few fingers slide up her inside thigh. She was grinding against him and wriggling, like maybe she was still dancing with the music, and she was so hot, so fucking hot and sensual - something in her that none of those skinny blondes could ever hope to attain.

He wanted it. Whatever it was, he wanted it, this magic in his hands. She was pressing back against him, pressing hard, her ass rubbing him raw, and he sucked harder on her neck where he’d marked her earlier in the night.

She moaned and her arm came up like she was going to hook it around his neck and hold him there.

Instead she gripped his ear and twisted, and he gasped, knees buckling as she spun around.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hissed.

“That fucking hurt.”

“I’m trying to get their attention and you’re hustling me off the floor. Fucking hell, Richard.”

He was really starting to hate it when she called him Richard. Castle reached out for her wrist but she yanked away from him, rocking back into that same hard-bodied guy who’d been watching, waiting for his moment.

The guy grinned and wrapped his arms around Beckett, swayed with her, dipping her knees as he put his mouth on her neck.

Right where Castle had been.

“Kate,” he growled, stepping forward into her. He calculated there were thirteen ways to kill the black-haired vulture - and at least four of them would be completely silent - but she was nudging the guy forward with her towards the floor. The beady-eyed fucker gave Castle a curl of his lip as his hands landed on her ass.

Castle started forward.

Just when he’d lifted a hand to grab the dick’s neck, she shoved on his chest. He didn’t so much as budge, but she was moving away.

“Fuck off,” she yelled back to him over the music. Her eyes were flames in the purple light, a hell so dark in her gaze. “I am working here.”

He put his hand to his burning, twisted ear and glared after her, breathing hard, cock angry in his defense, and a real pain threading down through to his guts. She was already gone, called forward into the crowd by that blackbird man with his too-wide lapels and his roving hands.

\-----

Castle slunk back to the bar, roughly yanked the stool out of Mikhail’s hand as the man laughed too loudly.

“You crashed and fucking burned,” Mikhail said in English. “Fucking burned.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Castle growled. “Give me a fucking shot.”

“Oh, she got to you, she did.” He laughed again, that loud and booming thing, and Castle cut his eyes towards the dance floor, but Beckett was purposefully not looking at him.

“She’s good, yeah?” Mikhail said roughly, nodding his head towards the dance floor. “She’s fucking them all.”

“She’s not,” he rasped, bit his tongue to shut the hell up.

“You know she is. Look at her. Her thighs are the perfect width apart for a hand to slide right up under that skirt and grab her by the cunt.”

His nostrils flared and his fingers curled around the glass; he did a shot of vodka to keep from feeling that remembered burn between her legs, instead felt the burn down his throat.

“I’d fuck her. Hell. You’d fuck her - you know you would - no matter how many of those assholes she had by the balls. Sloppy seconds or thirds or fucking five hundred-”

“She’s not fucking them,” he growled. “She’s fucking them over maybe, screwing with their heads. She’s like ice. She’s too cool.”

“She has the look of a cock tease? No, no. Not so, my friend. She’s fucking all of them. She’s had their dicks in her mouth. Can you-”

Castle hooked an arm around Mikhail’s neck and jerked him back off the stool in a move so fast, no one else even saw it. Mikhail’s head cracked the floor and one of the hookers screamed, but Castle was already laughing it off and calling him a fucking drunk pussy, leaning over him to check his breathing.

Mikhail was out cold, and when Castle lifted his eyes, Beckett was staring straight at him through a crowd that had seemed to part around her.

He avoided her gaze and instead helped one of the bouncers pick Mikhail up off the floor. Explaining in Russian about his drunk friend, "He's had too much; he toppled right off the stool in the middle of a dirty story." Castle had a shoulder under the big man's armpit. "You have some place-?"

“Bring him back here. Fuck. You come on. Bring him. Boss will not be happy.”

He hadn’t meant to, but it looked like he was headed for those back rooms ahead of schedule.

Beckett was furious at the center of the dance floor, and he didn’t like being behind closed doors, but he’d come get her. Soon. He’d figure out a way.

She could hold her own anyway; already, a couple guys were elbowing each other out of the way to get next to her. The music thumped and pulsed, the dancing never stopped, but Castle was moving further away from where he wanted to be - though it was closer to where she wanted to be.

In those back rooms with the boss. He should have let Mikhail drool all over her and bring her in on his arm, but then again-

He wouldn't be able to watch her back if she was in here without him. Let her make her own way.

\-----

Castle was ensconced in a poker game with five other players, cataloging their tattoos as a way to keep his mind off the woman still left outside on the dance floor when the door opened and that very woman came inside.

It had only taken her an hour and a half, all told, from the time they’d arrived for her to get back here in the game. He’d just been about to make up an excuse to go out there and pick her up as a lucky charm, but she’d managed it alone.

She was hanging on to some beefy guy - a Mikhail look-alike - who was sitting down to a game just past Castle’s view. She didn’t look at him at all, but he knew that she had found him immediately among all the others, knew she was supremely confident in her power over the thug at her side. Rick’s face was hot as he stared down at his hand, barely able to keep track of the bets going around the table, and it happened to work in his favor.

They all thought he was bluffing poorly and they bet too high, and Richard got his head back in the game, but he allowed the heat to remain. The tension on his cards from his fingers translated up to the flex in his forearms, and the five at the table read those subtle cues as desperation. He might be desperate, but it had nothing to do with cards.

Castle raked in the pot.

He hadn't cleared them out too badly, though, still enough chips left in their stacks that they could grumble at him but not want to call him out for a duel. Or whatever asinine things these Russian mobsters living in New York actually did. Probably cutting off fingers or something equally archaic - not at all what real Russian mobsters did. These had grown fat and soft and warm in their bars in Brighton Beach, unused to real work and afraid of generations-ago poverty. Even Foley's crew were harder-edged than these.

Richard was moved up to another table, a higher stakes table, and they were playing rougher and with more intensity than the first. He got in on the game with a five thousand dollar buy-in, and he was given his chips by the master of the table.

Beckett was closer, but she was haunting the edges of the room with the other girls. There was one woman at a table near the door, smoking a cigar and regarded as a man, but otherwise the hookers and girlfriends only flirted around the tables.

It wouldn’t be close enough for Beckett; she’d need more. Though, now that he considered it - now that he wasn’t seduced by her nearness - he was beginning to question her whole mission. Where was her training officer, where was the lieutenant in charge of this case, what was the plan ?

He had to keep his mind off Beckett and on the game at hand, the deal of the cards and the lay of the table, the felt against his elbows. He steadfastly paid attention, strictly ordered his mind to the mission, to getting himself deeper into his cover. He fell into his sketchy Russian; there’d been a six-month stay in Kiev once, as a teen in training, a few years before the Ukraine had been founded, and he knew he still used some of those old country idioms. Even the cobbled together attempt at using their own language ingratiated himself to them, warming them as much as they could be.

He lost purposefully and then won big, moving up again once more. This time the table was one above the Mikhail look-alike, so that meant he’d won faster than her man.

No, not her man. Just her mark. That was all this was - one big game.

He shifted his eyes to the man and saw Beckett had claimed some kind of place with him - of course she had - and that she was whispering in his ear.

Castle lost.

More than he’d meant to. He cursed himself and tried to pay attention, doubled down on focusing, but he could see Kate’s breasts down the front of her silver dress, her body leaning over the man’s shoulder as she giggled in his ear.

Giggled.

He’d never heard her giggle before.

Castle lost again.

Fuck it all. They laughed at him and nodded to Beckett, made rude comments about a cat catching his cock, and he was shuffled back down a table.

Beckett’s table. (Fuck, had he subconsciously done it on purpose?)

As Richard stood and made for the folding chair drawn up to the green felt, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. She was drinking from the same glass as her new Mikhail, sharing herself with him, her breasts pressed into his back as they occupied the same chair. Her hair had softened with the night, those sharp spikes going a little limp now that it was nearly two in the morning, and her fingers were long and light against the man’s neck.

Rick’s blood rushed in his ears as she ignored him, and he wanted, desperately and viscerally, to sink his fist into the man’s face. The fucker was practically ignoring Kate one moment, and then reaching out to squeeze her ass for good luck the next. She was a thing to him, and that made Castle furious.

He sat down at the table and was dealt into the game, breathing hard through his nose, and one of the men from the table he’d lost leaned back in his chair to shout an insult.

“You better keep your eyes on this one. He wins like a shark - except when he’s looking at your girl.”

They all laughed and the man patted Kate on the ass, wound his arm around her waist. Met Castle's eyes in a blatant challenge.

But Kate shifted forward. “If he wins, he can have me,” she simpered. Beckett batted her eyes at him in come here, lover and his cock throbbed in response because he’d seen that look before. He knew it. It was a look just for him, it had to be for him; he refused to believe it was for anyone else.

“I’ll win,” he said gruffly. “And then I’ll have you.”

The table erupted in laughter and the man shook his fat finger at Castle, but he also tightened his arm around Beckett and pulled her closer, too close, and Castle’s pulse pounded in his guts.

He was going to win. He didn’t fucking care about her damn case.


	5. Chapter 5

Her suitor’s name was Vadim and he got more fucking handsy as the game wore on. He’d progressed from Beckett’s ass to her inside thigh, sliding his hand between her knees to clutch at the back of her leg, his thumb roving upwards underneath the dress.

It was not okay.

Castle hooked his feet behind the legs of his chair to keep himself in his seat, and he studied his hand. Beckett was good at this, he saw, because she never for a second gave anything away, but she was allowing Castle small advantages. Like she thought he needed her help to win.

He buried his nose in the cards and tried to ignore her, ignore the tilt of her hips or the flash of her smile, ignore the giggle that echoed in another man’s ear, ignore the way she curled her fingers around Vadim’s bicep.

He couldn’t ignore the slide of Vadim’s hand along her thigh, couldn’t ignore the way she’d jumped into it, without hesitation, not even flinching, letting the man do whatever was necessary to get the job done.

He wanted to get the damn job done as well, but for different reasons. Get her the fuck out of here so that he could take her home and - and - and put his hand to her thigh, reclaim that skin Vadim was marking up with his pudgy fingers.

Castle didn't share.

Richard won, and then he won again, and then when Vadim had gotten down to his last thousand worth of chips, Castle took great and delicious pleasure in bleeding them from the man one by one.

He drew it out. He made it last, the long and terrible round of hand after hand. He won a little, lost a little, but always winning more than he lost. He made Vadim sweat it out, made Kate sweat it as well, and he realized after a time that it was Vadim himself that was the mission.

She’d come here not solely for the illegal gambling; she’d come here to get in close to Vadim.

She wasn’t giving Castle tips on how to win; no, those signals under cover weren't about winning. She was furious with him, furiously trying to get him to stop.

Fuck that. No. He was done with this.

He won.

He fucking won.

Because Vadim's hands needed to get off her. Because this was a fucking sham of a play on her part, she had no fucking back-up, and he was pretty damn sure she was doing this renegade style, all on her own, to win herself points in Vice.

What, had the big boys not taken her seriously? Were they not even putting her out as bait on the street corner? She had barely been attached to the Vice detail, maybe what, three months of running errands for the detectives, and now she thought she should tackle this alone?

Richard was pissed. So he won.

Vadim bellowed with rage when the cards were turned over. “You fucking cheat.”

“No. You’re simply too busy with your hand up her dress to pay any attention,” Castle said calmly. He felt it flinting inside him, the spark of rage that he didn’t know what to do with. And everything was tinder.

“We play again. Give me the right to win it back.”

“No,” Castle said. “You’re not even playing - or at least not with cards.” He didn’t dare look at Beckett, but he wanted Vadim to rise to the bait.

“I play better than any man here.”

“Not better than me.”

“And who the fuck are you?”

“Evidently - your better,” Castle said. He flicked his fingers at the man in a dismissive gesture and began gathering his chips. He pretended it was absolutely nothing to him that Vadim blustered on, pretended that Beckett’s narrow-eyed anger was nothing to him as well.

What had she been expecting? As Vadim’s good luck charm, the man would what - take her back to his place? What the fuck had been her plan? This was pointless and ridiculous and what kind of case was she hoping to make?

She was in the NYPD - they required evidence and proof and all those laws about fruit of the poison tree. Entrapment wasn’t a crime, but surely prostitution wasn’t what she hoped to pin on Vadim. And if she made it back to his lair, with no damn back-up, what the fuck had she thought to get from it?

“I demand another game,” Vadim said, slamming his fists on the table.

A couple of the other players glanced Castle’s way with an evident sense of reluctant obligation. And the place had gone deadly quiet. Apparently almost every man in the room was Vadim’s man because he had a sea of eyes on him.

Damn, she rolled high, didn't she? Couldn't be bothered with a lesser asshole in the food chain, had to go straight for the top.

But Richard had Vadim right where he wanted him.

“One game?” he said. Tapped a ten thousand dollar chip on top of another. He'd played harder and more brutal in Monte Carlo just five years ago, on a thing for his father before 9-11. It'd been fun, and he'd had to put an ice pick in a man's temple to get out of there after.

Vadim was a slow useless idiot who had too much power.

"One game," Richard mused.

“One game is all I need,” Vadim spat out.

“And what exactly do you propose to offer as collateral?”

“I am worth more than fifty times what you’ve won here tonight.”

“I don’t know you,” Castle snarled back. “Fifty times nothing is nothing. I need collateral. Something of intrinsic value.”

Vadim slapped Beckett’s ass and shoved her off his knee. “Her. She’s got value to you, doesn’t she? You did say you’d win her.”

Castle lifted his eyes to Beckett, saw the absolute fury on her face. Directed at him.

“She’s of no worth to me,” he rasped. His throat scratched at the words. “Not in a damn poker game, you fucking idiot. I need real, honest collateral. She's a side piece.”

Vadim issued a curse and Beckett moved back to Vadim's chair, but he shoved her away. “You’re on his side now, you slut. Didn’t you hear me?”

“He said-”

“What the fuck are you doing opening your mouth?” Vadim roared.

Castle ignored her and kept his eyes on Vadim. “What else you got? You’ve lost fifty thousand dollars, my man. You can’t expect one night with a mouthy prostitute will win this back.”

“I know. I have just the thing for you.” And Vadim reached inside his jacket pocket.

Castle wished to hell he’d brought his gun. Holy fucking - this is what happened when he listened to Beckett. She had no idea.

“Here,” Vadim said, his voice cold. He withdrew his hand and out came a little black pouch.

He poured diamonds out onto the table.

Beckett stiffened.

Shit. Castle was going to have to lose, wasn’t he? This is what she'd come for, the damn impulsive bitch. This was much more than illegal gambling.

“I’m in,” he rumbled.

\-----

Beckett changed hands twice before Richard had won most of the diamonds. He grinned like a fool - his cover tonight was definitely a fool in too deep - and Beckett narrowed her eyes at him. If looks could kill.

He had meant to lose, but he'd been afraid that losing would put him in an untenable situation. Also, Vadim was shit at reading his bluffs. And the cards kept falling his way.

So he changed his plan.

They dealt the cards and he concentrated on keeping track of what was laid out, counting in his head. He had palmed an ace a few tables ago, but it was nearly impossible to switch it out, especially when he didn’t know how many aces were in view on the table.

Cheating would be a terrible idea; he already knew that. But the prop of cheating might help him later. Either to plant it on another player or to reveal it himself. Chaos and distraction were his tools to wield when he had no other weapon but his own body.

Beckett had produced a chair as the other tables cleared out, and she sat too close to Vadim, hanging on him until he would smack her with a backhand. Castle kept his seat only because she managed to duck the force of most of the blows, but her cheek was still bright red. And her ass, he had no doubt.

Richard paid attention and then he handily won Beckett back.

She scraped her chair around to his side and he slid his arm between her knees, gripping her hard. When his eyes caught hers, he saw the murderous intent at the back of dark irises, and he knew, at least, that wasn’t for him - it was for Vadim.

She was as pissed as he was at the rough handling. Every time Vadim won, he was roughing her up for the fun of it.

"Baby, looks like a night with him in a celebratory mood would leave you battered," he smirked, the warning in his eyes just for her. She ignored him and told Vadim his cards, and he lost again.

Only a little. It was blatant cheating on Vadim's part, but not a man left in the room spoke a word against him. Still, Richard hung on to Beckett and scraped his way back to the top again.

“Baby, I’m gonna win you all his fucking diamonds, and then we’re getting out of here.”

Vadim chortled. “You fucking wish. Her? She is nothing. These are everything, and I will keep them.”

“Everything to you? That makes you weak,” Castle drawled.

Beckett pinched his thumb and twisted it back. It tweaked the nerve, but he assumed it was supposed to hurt more than it had, by the way she threw him a triumphant glare.

He leaned in and nipped her ear. “I know. Cool it, Beckett. I got this.”

She growled something and Vadim was laughing, talking shit about the snarling prostitute, and Castle tried to keep the players' attention on her - and not on the diamonds.

Two others bowed out, but they sat at the table and watched the game go on. The rest who had been at other tables had mostly been ushered back out into the club, and Richard did another quick headcount as he left his cards flat on the table. One swift look before Beckett could see, and he calculated quietly.

He had a feeling that if he did win these diamonds, they’d be taken from him before he ever made it out of here.

He would be ready.

After another tense hour of dealing cards and weighing every move carefully, he’d lost big but gained incrementally. He had maybe half the bag of diamonds and he knew he could get the rest. Castle thought he’d been sly with it, but when Vadim reached into his pocket for the velvet bag, he must have realized how low his funds were getting.

“You’re fucking cheating,” Vadim said. His tone was even, and that alerted Castle more than anything. “You’re cheating the game.”

“No, I’m playing for diamonds,” Rick said easily. “For her. You think she’ll fuck me if I don’t got them?”

“You think she’ll stay if you don’t have a fucking dick?”

“There's no cheating,” he insisted. It was the only word that mattered in this room right now.

Half the men in the room had stood at Vadim’s accusation, and now jackets were being pushed aside, weapons were being shown. In her chair, Beckett tensed.

“You want to fuck me up, then you do that,” Castle bluffed. “But I guarantee you that no one will step foot in this place again. You play fair - you lose fair. Or else you lose your customers.”

“Yes, but are you even playing fair? I don’t think so.”

Castle stood now as well, pushing his chair back and letting it topple over. Using that for cover, in a quick move he withdrew the four-inch knife blade he always kept tucked under his belt, letting it flash in the room.

“What the fuck?” Beckett gasped, and she was on her feet now as well.

Using her movement for distraction, Castle quickly pressed his hand at her back, slipped the ace inside her dress at her ass. She grunted and he shoved her away from him, but the ace was gone, safely hidden. Just in case they got him - searched him - he wouldn’t have it on him. Right now, he was hoping to talk crazy and get them both out of here. With these diamonds for evidence.

He held the knife before him easily, professionally, and let his stance do the convincing - they were dealing with someone who knew his shit. Castle glanced at her with his blank affect, the spy look, and hoped she understand what he needed. “I will use this on anyone who comes close to me. Including you, whore. You’re one of his.”

“I’m no one’s whore,” she screeched.

The sudden eruption of her voice - her hysterical anger - gave Castle all the cover he needed. With a swipe of his blade, he had the player closest to him under a headlock, choking his airway and collapsing his trachea in no more than a heartbeat.

Castle yanked the gun from his holster and brought it up, shot the two men on either side of Vadim before they could draw, and then he aimed directly at Vadim. “You want to fucking play the game, or you want to die?”

“I’m not playing with you,” Vadim roared, standing up and bringing his meaty hands to the table. He upended it like a giant in a doll’s house, throwing cards and poker chips, scattering diamonds. The girls who were still in the room squealed and dropped to their knees, scrabbling for diamonds, pulling hair, kicking out with those high heels.

Beckett didn’t flinch.

And if Vadim thought his little stunt would distract Castle, he was an amateur. Castle took out the third man that reached for his weapon even as the cards were still spinning. Vadim roared a furious command in Russian and Castle aimed just past Vadim and shot the man immediately on Vadim’s right, knowing it was his number two guy, the one he relied on the most. His shot was perfect.

The poker room went still; the man gurgled and his blood sprayed as he sucked noisily through the hole in his throat. His death was the only sound in the room.

He dropped and Vadim turned a furious but impotent gaze on him. His own weapon seemed to be at the small of his back, inaccessible with Castle's gun trained on him.

“You fucking leave. You leave my business, and you never come back. I am going to hunt you down-”

Castle shot another man who was beginning to draw.

Vadim roared and Castle gave a shrug. “I can do this all day. You want to die or you want to play?”

Beckett was staring at him.

“Set up the table, you’ll play for the diamonds. I’ll even let you win back the whore.”

“I don’t fucking want the whore, you fucking bastard.”

“I will shoot every last one of your men. And yet you just stand there, you won't play me.” Castle raised his voice and addressed the handful still left in the room. Some weren’t Vadim’s, some just played high-stakes poker here. He had guessed correctly when he’d thought that Vadim had minimal security with him. “The rest of you. Wouldn’t you like to be able to play a fucking fair game with this man? Have any of you thrown your hand because of his fucking guards sitting like vultures around the table?”

There were a few bright looks, a couple of scowls, and Castle grinned like a maniac. Crazy men with deadly aim were nothing to fuck with.

“Vadim, you have two more men here, and I know which ones they are and how slow they are on the draw. Why do you think I killed these two first? I will kill them as well. Don’t make me do it.”

“Fucking leave. You get the fuck out of here.”

“Play me,” Castle roared.

Vadim actually flinched. His hands were shaking and even though he still had two more men who were armed and theoretically on his side, Castle knew they wouldn’t attempt to shoot at him.

“Here,” Vadim croaked. “Girls, fuck. Fuck you all, get off your knees, you fucking whores, and give him the diamonds. All of the diamonds.”

Screeches, one sob. Two paralyzed with indecision, wild eyes.

“Right now.”

Girls and a couple of the guys as well all scrambled to collect the diamonds and hand them over. Castle didn’t waver, didn’t take them. “Give them to her,” he said calmly. “Pay the whore.”

Beckett shot him a look filled with death, but she cupped her hands and collected every last glittering piece of ice. Castle didn’t watch her, barely acknowledged her, and he kept his eyes on Vadim.

When Beckett had them all, she cleared her throat, acting nervous.

“Leave,” he told her. “Out the side door, into the kitchens. You girls - all of you. Go. Right now. Leave. I have business to clear up.”

Beckett cast a swift look around the room and Castle grinned maniacally at Vadim. But he addressed Beckett. “Baby, you know I can find you, wherever you run." He kicked the dead guy at his side. "Take one of the guns. Leave now. All the whores - go. I don’t want you to have to see this.”

The girls flocked for the doors, a couple of the regular players scooting outside with them as well. He saw Beckett scoop up two guns from one of the dead men, elbowing her way through, though she cast a long look at him before she left.

When the room was moderately clear and he knew there’d be no witnesses who would talk later, Richard stepped up to Vadim.

He pressed the point of the knife into the soft flesh below Vadim’s ear, let him feel the sting and the choking sensation of that nerve being crushed.

“All you had to do was play me,” Richard whispered.

Vadim’s nostrils flared and his hands fisted; he made a noise in the back of his throat and then Richard smelled his bowels as they released in fear. Nothing like crazy to set a hardened criminal on his ass.

Richard nicked his skin with the knife and let the blood run. “All I wanted was a friendly game. And then you called me a cheater.”

Vadim choked on his words, but none of them seemed to come out right. No one left alive moved. Or breathed. There were two on security and two who hadn't left, which meant they thought they could take him.

Richard breathed hotly. “I’m a murderer and a psychopath, sure. But I’m no cheater.”

He withdrew the blade, lifted his free hand and patted Vadim on the shoulder. The man cried out as if struck.

Richard thought it was enough - payback for all the times he’d manhandled Beckett - and he moved for the door.

But just before he made it, he felt the room shift, the movement towards violence, and he turned on his heel, ducking his head and bringing up his gun.

The bodyguard who’d drawn his weapon didn’t even have time to raise it. Richard's shot rang out and the security man slumped over the table and then crashed to the floor.

Richard finished the job, as he'd been trained, a rapid succession of shots. He had to duck and roll, confiscate another weapon, used that borrowed gun to finish Vadim.

The man was alone in the bloodbath; he had a flesh wound at his shoulder. He was babbling.

And then Richard left.

\-----

Out through the kitchens and into the stink of trash in the alley outside the club, Castle searched for her. He finally caught sight of her behind the dumpster and she looked like she hadn’t known whether to stay or go. When he approached, she stepped out into the middle of the alley, her dress barely covering her ass, her hair wild as her eyes. She had a weapon in each hand, aimed at his head.

She gasped and stood down, her body pivoting away.

He made straight for her, pissed that she had waited so close to the club. The damn gunshots would have attracted attention, and there would no doubt be a security team scouring the area for them - for Richard. Those diamonds were going to be missed, and Richard had a sour idea they'd been payment for someone smarter and higher up than fucking Vadim.

Couldn’t stick around here. “Come on,” he said tensely, grabbing the guns.

She didn’t budge. “What. The. Fuck.”

“I could ask the same of you, Beckett,” he growled at her ear. He swiped her prints from the grip and handle, made sure the trigger guard was clear, then used his own fingers to smudge hers. He hadn't had clear prints since he'd been a boy; his father had scarred them early on.

Richard chucked the guns in the dumpster and grabbed for her. He yanked her into his side and marched her out of the alley and down through the darkness towards - well, towards not here.

“You fucking killed four men in there.”

“You fucking went in without back-up.”

“And so you killed them?”

“And so I did what was necessary to extract us, Beckett. What the hell were you doing, playing at whore and getting slapped around? For what? Diamonds? Vadim's handler? What was the plan there?” He yanked her into another alley and pressed in close to her to listen; she stiffened but she must have heard it then too.

Shouting from back near the club. She wrapped her arm around his neck and he felt her shivering, saw the flash and sparkle of the dress.

“You need to change clothes,” he said quickly. “Here.” He tugged his shirt off over his head and draped it over her. “Now, Beckett.”

“The hell-”

“Your dress catches the light, damn it. Do it now.”

Beckett snapped her jaw shut but she squirmed into his shirt.

“You have the diamonds?” he asked.

“Yes, of course. What the fucking hell-”

“Where are they?”

“In my panties. They hurt like fuck.”

Castle's guts flared. He bent down and caught the bottom of her dress, rucked it up. She was spitting fire and cursing a blue streak as she gripped his bare arms. But he had easy access. Richard pushed his fingers into her panties and fished for those diamonds between her legs.

She shut up.

He withdrew one particularly large diamond up through her slit and scraped it against her clit and she jerked, her head thrown back. He touched his lips to her throat because he couldn't help himself, how beautiful and dangerous she was. She shuddered as he drew diamonds out of her panties and tucked them into her pocket.

"Smart," he husked. Kissed her wide open mouth. "Very smart." He went back for the rest, and her hips jerked, but she didn't offer a sound. "That's it, Beckett. Stay very quiet. They're coming for us."

Her nails dug into his arms as he scraped diamonds from her cunt.

“Should've known this was a fantasy of yours.” He kissed her roughly, furious at abandoning her heat to shove the last of the diamonds in his pocket. But he heard men coming, and he pulled back.

She stared at him. "You killed every man in that room, didn't you?"

Richard gripped the back of her neck to keep from kissing her again, to catch his breath. “This is what I do, Beckett. Don’t underestimate my ability.”

“No,” she whispered. "Never again."

He took her hand. “Come on. We’re going to have to be creative to get out of Brighton Beach.”

\-----

She kept giving him looks as they scaled the fire escape, and he knew it was because she’d never seen this side of him before. His capability.

He didn’t care; she was alive and so was he, and whatever that had been back there, she was going to damn well tell him why.

“So your operation,” he said, scoping the traffic below from their vantage point on the roof. They could see Vadim’s men as they formed a search, a careful grid that would be difficult to slip.

“My operation,” she echoed.

“What did you think you’d be doing in there?”

“NYPD have known for a while that Vadim was into more than just illegal gaming. We just didn’t know what.”

“The diamonds aren’t all of it,” he said idly. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” she said quietly. She was holding herself carefully away from him even though she had to be cold. He was wearing only the undershirt while she had her father’s dress shirt over her outfit, but it wasn’t enough to cut the fierce wind that blew up here.

“Diamonds means smuggling, means he’s paying a man for something with those diamonds. Help me out. What is he dealing?”

“I think it’s girls,” she said finally. She gave him a look, her eyes dead. "Human trafficking."

“And you waltzed in there like a prize,” he muttered.

“I was hoping he’d tap me for it, yeah,” she said. He saw her jaw clench.

“And then what? You had no back-up, Beckett. If I hadn’t shown up on your doorstep with a pathetic dog, what would you have done tonight?”

“It was - I didn’t expect all of that. Probably some fucking macho idiot wouldn’t have gotten as far as you did. I was only there to garner his attention. But you got into the back room.”

There was that. “And what? Vadim would win you and he’d show you his diamonds to impress you and you’d arrest him?”

“I’d have the intel I needed to take it back to Vice and get in on the case.”

“You think the Lieutenant in charge of Vice would be happy to take your word of mouth report and go bust a gaming hall?”

She was silent. Yeah, if he had to bet once more tonight, then he bet she’d had no fucking clue what she was getting herself into.

“You need a fucking partner,” he muttered. “Someone on the job, who will make you come up with a fucking means of escape on these wild ops of yours. What the fuck happened to Royce?”

“You fucking happened to Royce,” she growled, shoving hard on his shoulder and stepping away from the edge of the roof. He watched her a moment, confused by her wounded anger, replaying the words in his head.

Still didn’t make sense. “What do you mean, I happened?”

“You happened,” she shot back, her arms crossed over her chest and her back to him. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t think much of ultimatums.”

Ultimatums?

Oh, fuck. It was about him. Royce had told her to stop seeing him and she hadn’t. She really hadn't.

Castle sank back against the brick wall and dropped his head in his hands. She had stuck up for him; she had chosen him. And he’d done what? Shown up when he felt like it, fucked her a little, and then gone back to having fun on his real job.

She'd been crying that day he'd left.

Royce had only and ever wanted to look out for Beckett. He’d told Beckett no because Beckett was looking to fucking self-destruct, sabotage herself, and Royce knew better than to take a few easy fucks and destroy Beckett for good.

But not Richard. Oh, no. He’d taken whatever he wanted and come back for more, taking and taking.

There was nothing to say to that, nothing he could offer her. And suddenly that wasn’t okay any more, wasn’t nearly okay.

“You’ll - you will take care of my dog, right?”

She spun around, something fierce covering the wounded parts of her. “Do what?”

“If I don’t make it. You’ll take care of my dog.”

“What?” she sneered. “It’s a damn foot race is all, Castle. After what you did in that room, there’s no doubt in my mind we’re getting out of here.”

He tensed and shook his head. “No. I mean. If something goes wrong in Ireland.” He lifted his gaze to her. “I’m good. I know I’m good. But shit happens.”

She dropped her arms and her hands hung at her sides, staring at him again. “Okay.”

“You will?”

“You care about that damn mangy dog?”

“Yeah,” he rasped. “A lot. It wouldn’t leave my side and - and no one has ever stuck with me before.”

She blinked and looked away from him, out over the rooftops. He saw the faint shimmer of her dress from below the hem of the shirt. “Yeah, Rick. I’ve got the dog.”

He closed his eyes to absorb that - they both knew he wasn't talking about the dog really - and then he opened them again, determined to get her home.

Sooner rather than later.


	6. Chapter 6

They crawled down from the rooftop and slunk in the shadows between a restaurant and another club, slipped away from people and headed towards the residential section.

Her shoes echoed on the pavement and he wished she’d take them off, but he didn’t think it was wise to tell her how to do her job right now.

Plus the street was disgusting and he saw more than a few used condoms, so he amended his wish and hoped she kept the shoes on. He wanted to kiss those feet later, and he didn’t want this mental image rearing up before him.

Kate came up against his side as he waited at the corner; he peered through the darkness and counted two on the next block up. “We’re penned,” he murmured.

“Back this way,” she said softly.

He followed her now, heading back another block away from where they wanted to be, deeper into Brighton Beach, and he felt her fingers lacing through his.

She was taking them to a pay-by-the-hour motel.

“Becket.”

She was wriggling out of his shirt and handing it back to him, yanking on her dress so that it skewed nearly off her shoulder, one of her breasts luridly spilling free. She covered it up, but only marginally, the nipple half-showing, and fuck if he wasn’t hard.

“All right,” she said quickly. “Go in and get us a room.”

“Beckett. We can’t hole up in this place. They’ll tell.”

“We won’t hole up. Get a room, we’ll go out the fire escape and to the next building. See?” She nodded towards where the could just make out the touching fire escapes, the neighboring warehouse so close that it would be easy.

“And then what?”

“Use the rooftops. Hurry. There are two more men heading down this street.”

He took her roughly by the hand and entered the motel.

\-----

“I’m not having sex with you in this nasty-"

He laughed and dropped his hand from her arm, pressed his palm to her lower back instead. "No, baby, that was mostly to keep him from remembering us."

"You bought ten. Extra-large. And while I won't say you don't need every bit of that extra, it's not exactly common. Only you could go ten in an hour, Richard."

He grinned and cupped the back of her head, kissed her roughly for that comment. He stroked her cheek with his thumb and then leaned in for a softer kiss, and she took that too, gentling with him. He was surprised. He'd thought she was pissed at him for eliminating those targets at the gambling table.

"With you, I could go twenty," he murmured.

"How romantic," she muttered, rolling her eyes and yanking the key from his hand. She turned and stuck it in the door marked with their number and she had to shove her shoulder into the wood for it to give.

"That's me. Take you to the best places, baby."

She smirked at him and fell into the room, stumbling over the bedspread which was piled on the floor, attached only by a thin, stained sheet to the bed.

"Oh. Gross," she hissed.

"Yeah, this is...." He winced and shut the door behind them. "Even for me, this is sub-par."

"For you? You're a spy - don't you wear a tuxedo every day and charm your way into women's pants?"

"Did I charm my way into yours?" he grinned.

She narrowed her eyes.

"I got no game with you, Beckett. But I could do the tuxedo if you thought that would help. Does that make you hot?"

"You're an ass."

"Check the window," he said, winking at her.

She headed towards the window and he stepped back out into the hallway again, saw the grimy window at the end that led to the fire escape. "There's one out here."

"This one is painted shut. And I think it's got an alarm."

He winced and came back inside, headed over to her. He inspected the painted-over wires carefully, picked at the alarm sticker that was flaking off on the window. "No," he said finally. "It's a dummy. Maybe it used to be active, but it goes nowhere. See?"

He wiggled the wires at the top where they disappeared into the wood frame. They came loose from the wood and ended in nothing - as if they'd been sheared off.

"Okay. Can you open it? It's painted shut."

"Maybe." He flipped the latch on the lock and pressed his palms to the metal handle, tried to force it open. "Oof. Maybe not. Shit."

"Try your knife."

He gave her a head nod for the innovation, slipped the knife out. He dug the point into the paint and worked at it a moment, but it was more than just paint. And he didn't want to ruin the knife when he might need it.

Richard went back to brute force but she sighed and turned. "The one in the hallway? Or another room?"

He heaved, and the window let out a terrible squealing crunch. Kate gripped his arm and he stopped, their eyes meeting.

"Okay, we'll leave this one alone," he whispered. "Let's go up the stairs to the top - see if there's roof access. We can jump."

Her mouth dropped open for one second, one stunned and incomprehensible second, and then she shut her mouth and led the way out of the room.

He wanted to know what had happened with Royce. When he finally got her home tonight, he'd exact a little punishment for the way she'd thrown herself into a dangerous situation without even a hope of a plan, and then he'd ask her. When she was nice and pliant, when she was humming with him, he'd ask her how she'd gone about choosing him over her training officer.

Even though it left her without back-up, he realized he was thrilled.

\-----

There was roof access.

She didn’t look thrilled about jumping.

“Come on, Beckett. I’ll go first, and then you. Launch yourself towards the middle, let your knees bend and roll with it.”

She narrowed her eyes across the distance and he could see the way she flexed and fisted her hands. “If I break both my legs, you’re fucking carrying me.”

“Of course. But you won’t. It’ll be a breeze.”

“Says the man who could go twenty,” she muttered.

He grinned and he knew she could see his teeth in the darkness because she huffed and stepped away from him, moving towards the edge.

“No, not like that. You gotta get a running start, baby.”

“Don’t fucking patronize me,” she hissed. She peered over the edge and then jerked back, cursing. “Shit. Shit, they’re here.”

Castle headed for the edge and glanced down, saw the coterie of muscle men stepping into the front door of the motel.

“Babe, we gotta go,” he said. “You have to do this.”

Her jaw worked, that muscle flexing under her skin, and she nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

He glanced over the edge, two more men coming inside. “You promise me?” he said, turning his head to her. She was something fierce, something strong. But. “Kate. Promise me. You’re right behind me.”

She flared a nasty look at him. “I’m fucking right behind you. Now go.”

He grinned and gripped her by her arms, pulled her into his rough, punishing kiss. She grunted and gave it back, her teeth nipping his tongue, her fingers tightening in his hair and twisting.

“Stop fucking around,” she said harshly, her words breathy from his kiss. She shoved him off of her and he let go, glad to see that at least her goose bumps had disappeared.

Castle moved back to the far side of the roof, bent over with his fingers skimming the gravel top, and then he took off with a sudden burst of speed.

He cleared the four foot separation with a massive leap, arms swinging out as he free-fell towards the next roof. He felt the balls of his feet hit and absorb the impact up to his knees, and then he rolled, his hands coming out and dispersing his kinetic energy.

He bounced a little on his toes to release some energy, and then he turned around to encourage Beckett.

But she was already flying through air - dead at him.

\-----

Castle darted away from her flight path, barely making it out from under her, and he heard her breath leave her as she stumbled into her roll. Fall, really.

He jogged towards her and scooped her up; her elbows and knees were skinned and she was pushing her hair back from her face with shaky hands.

“Fuck, baby. You just fling yourself into the abyss, don’t you?”

She gave him a crackling glare, all fire and piss and damn-erotic bristling energy, and just when he thought he couldn’t take any more of that electricity, she was flinging herself at him.

She jumped him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs hooked at his hips and he grabbed her, devoured her mouth as she attacked him. He shoved his hands straight up her dress and inside her panties, pressed his thumbs into the crease of her ass and massaged. She moaned around him, sucking on his tongue, rocking her pelvis into his abs.

Castle lifted a hand to her back, pressing between her shoulder blades to get her closer. She tightened her thighs around him and he groaned, stumbled to one side before he felt the hard brick of the chimney slam into his shoulder.

She grunted and their mouths popped apart, but she was staring at him with uncontained lust, her need like a snaking, tightening thing between them. “Fuck me,” she rasped. “Right here. Fuck me, Castle.”

He rolled her back into the brick and propped her up with his thigh between her legs, growled as he went back for her mouth. She moaned around his tongue and rocked her hips viciously into his leg, and he couldn’t - couldn’t stop himself.

He got a hand between them and hooked his finger in her thong, yanked it aside to press his thumb up into her hot cunt. She hissed and writhed against the side of the chimney, her hands plucking at his pants, grabbing his crotch.

He moaned and bit her neck, sucked hard to mark her, a permanence that would never let her forget this moment, him, what they were together. She panted loudly in his ear and suddenly he felt the cold air against his cock and her hand closing around him.

“Fuck,” he gasped. “Beckett. Shit. Shit.”

She yanked on his cock and he yelped into her hair, his body jerking into her tug. Her hand was liquid heat burning him, and he found himself completely undone by it.

“Fuck me, Rick, come on. Come on. Inside me before I explode.”

She worked his cock so fiercely that he couldn’t breathe; he opened his mouth at her collarbone and practically gnawed on the bone, aching all over.

“Kate,” he groaned. “Kate, please. Please, baby. Need your help. I need you to-”

She pressed him to her entrance, the elastic of her thong chafing his cock, and then she shifted her hips, thighs spreading wider, and he sank into her.

“Oh fuck me,” he gasped.

“Little more,” she panted in his ear. Her teeth nipped his earlobe. “Little higher, tighter, baby. Push into me.” She was wriggling her hips and he had the sudden fierce vision of the brick wall scraping her bare ass, how deliciously, painfully erotic that was.

He thrust his hips and she moaned, shaking and trembling around him. He found strength returning to him with each of her noises, those grunts and pants for breath that made her whole body clutch at him.

He pumped his hips into her, his erection stuffed inside her, cleaving into her as she scrabbled at his back and writhed around him. She was violent, aggressive, and yet pleading, gasping his name, submissive. She was taking everything he had to give and sucking more and more from him, her cunt so wet and hot a fist that he was going to die.

“I need you to be close,” he growled at her. “You gotta be close, Beckett. Fucking - hell - you gotta fucking come. Right now.”

She screamed in the black night and shattered around him, dragging his explosive orgasm straight out of his balls to detonate inside her. She rattled with every thrust of his cock, her body wringing it from him, and he thought he was done, over, finished.

He’d never survive outside of her.

Just when he wanted to fall to his knees, her arms wrapped around his neck in a strange, tender embrace. Her mouth opened at his ear and she moaned in a breathy, desperate kind of way. “I need you - need you - please-”

He groaned, collapsing down to his knees, her back scraping down the brick as he lost his ability to function. He fumbled between them and found the place where his still-pulsing cock was buried deep. She was thrusting erratically, weakly, her body trembling and her arms holding him tight and close.

From his knees, he found the strength to pump into her, pressing her clit against his cock to give her that extra drag of sensation.

She keened and came again, tight and uncontrolled, some kind of molten goddess in his arms.

\-----

“Hurry,” she hissed.

“Beckett, fuck, I can’t move. You’re gonna have to wait.”

She growled something nasty about what happened to twenty but he didn’t even care. He’d been half-hard for her all evening, more than, and add to it the stress of watching Vadim feel her up, fingers moving too high, and those fucking smacks she'd taken, no wonder he was wiped out.

At least she’d zipped his pants back up for him. He was grateful for that measure of decency from her even if she wasn’t happy about being half-naked on the roof of the building next door to where Vadim’s muscle were currently searching. Or whoever the fuck had sent those goons. Local Russian mafia, no doubt.

He groaned and leaned his forehead into her neck, still trying to catch his breath.

She sighed and her arms came around him. He relaxed, thinking she was going to give him a moment, but her fingers tightened on his neck and bit into his skin.

“Move your fucking ass, Castle. Right now.”

He exhaled hotly over her skin, and then he hauled himself to his feet, bringing her with him. He tried to keep her standing - and himself as well - but his whole body was leaning into her, practically draped over her. She grunted and he realized she was bleeding; it was sticky against his fingers at her elbows.

“Shit,” he murmured, horrified. “You’re bleeding.”

“I jumped between rooftops. It happens. We need to go.”

“You’re badass, you know that? That’s what I love - that fucking hot no-holds-barred aspect to you, Beckett. You’re bleeding - so what? Fuck me anyway.”

She jerked away from him and he stumbled, recovered only barely, staring at her. She had a funny look on her face and she rubbed her hands over her arms.

“Oh, shit, sorry. You’ve got to be freezing." He yanked his shirt off again, the undershirt sticking where he was sweat-slicked from their fuck, and he draped it over her shoulders.

She slid her arms into it, didn't complain, but she still looked at him with wariness.

"Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, reaching for her arm to drag her with him.

“I can walk,” she muttered, but the vinegar was gone from her voice and she was studying him minutely. “Why’d you come?”

He choked on a laugh, steering them towards the door set into the side of the brick chimney. “Babe, you’re hot. And when you clamp those inside muscles around me, I can’t hold it back. Sorry. I should have waited to give you another orgasm before I did, but-” He shrugged.

She smirked, shaking her head, and he had the strange feeling that his answer hadn’t been the question she was asking.

“Why’d I come with you to the club?” he asked, trying to figure it out. “Because you needed back-up. And you’re wearing that dress, love, and it just killed me to think of you going out in that without me getting to see you move in it. Shimmery sex.”

He grinned at her, teasing his fingers along the slinky strap of her dress, positioning it a little higher so that her breasts weren’t quite so boldly alluring to him. He could see her nipples riding tight behind that slinky shine, and he realized she was bleeding, knees skinned, hair tumbling around her face, lips swollen, and he had barely even said thank you.

He paused just inside the door, the darkness nearly complete. He felt her heat and her presence, the strength of her in the black, and he leaned in and cupped her cheeks, laid a soft kiss along her lips.

“I came because with you it’s always amazing. You inspire me, Kate. You never let up.”

She caught his wrists with her fingers and just when he thought she was going to pull away from him, she stepped into his body and invited the embrace. He tucked her against him and buried his lips in her hair, felt the way her skin shivered under his touch.

“No one - no one else thinks of me like that,” she whispered.

A snide comment came to his lips immediately - like self-defense, like self-deprecation, a way to make it less - but he kept his mouth shut and stood by his statement. He had meant it.

And then he wondered if her question hadn’t been about tonight at all - but about him coming back to New York, to her.

He hoped that was the answer she was looking for.

He hoped it said, thank you for letting me come.

\-----

Once they had slipped Vadim's dragnet, they were free and clear of the trouble of Brighton Beach. Castle got looks for Beckett's rough appearance, but he hardly cared; she knew and he knew what was going on between them, and it wasn't that.

Well, honestly, Castle wasn't sure he did know what was going on between them. They'd been rough but they'd both wanted it, and they'd been tender even though he was certain Beckett didn't want that at all. She wanted him and he wanted her and that would have to work for now.

On the subway car back to her side of town, she kept a fist around the metal pole and swayed with the turns, easy and natural in her grace. He felt like a lumbering idiot beside her, and that was a first. She turned to him with a question in her eyes, like maybe he'd called her name and she was answering, but he'd said nothing out loud.

He shook his head and she shrugged, her eyes sliding back to the windows and the way the darkness flashed occasionally with light. He thought about calling her name then, staking some kind of claim on her attention, but he liked better the way he could watch her instead, study the line of her neck and the slope of her skin in that dress.

She still had goose bumps but she'd shrugged off his shirt once they were out of Brighton Beach. (He had nothing to offer her except his presence at her side, and even then that didn't seem enough when he was constantly out of the country.)

If he could hold her hand. He thought it would be better somehow, more permanent, like making a statement. If he could just hold her hand in the subway because they were together and because he really liked her, and not because they were running, he thought it would work.

Maybe she would smile at him, maybe not. Maybe she'd see him smiling and that would be everything she needed from him to last her in between their assignations.

"What are you gonna name that dog?" she said suddenly, her lips curving in the hint of that smile he'd been wanting. She was still watching the subway's progression through the darkness, but he didn't mind because he got to see the profile of her face, the things she thought she hid when she wasn't looking at him.

But oh, Beckett, love. Not hidden. He saw the way sadness bloomed in her eyes.

"I don't know. Someone stopped me on the street and called it a Czech wolfdog. Which is more information than I had. I thought he was an Irish wolfhound."

She grunted and her eyes flickered to him. "Richard. Have you seen an Irish wolfhound? They're the size of a full-grown man. And grey. And shaggy. And they have the face of a terrier."

"Oh. Not my dog."

"Not your dog," she snarked. A roll of her eyes at his incompetence but he liked that too, the way she didn't let him have anything, didn't give it up. He'd been with plenty of women who were smart, but none who kept proving her intelligence with every conversation.

"But he's a wolfish dog, so I guess I thought wolfhound," Castle explained. "I don't know that I'm up on dog breeds. If you'd asked me about African rock pythons, I could do that. Or local breweries in Dublin. Quiz me."

She was smothering a smile and ignoring him. He found that fascinating too. Was this what it felt like to fall in love? To want to prove himself to her but to also want to make a fool of himself just so she'd smile?

"Ask me to name all the sitting Supreme Court Justices," he went on. "Or summarize the Epic of Sundiata. Or-"

"You know the Epic of Sundiata?" she asked, eyes narrowing as she glanced at him. He'd caught her interest.

"Yeah, had to study it for a thing I did."

"A thing." He grinned and she rolled her eyes. "Why is it that when you say a thing, I get the feeling you mean a woman?"

Castle laughed. "Well, sometimes there were women. Not as many as you're thinking. It's not the Bond lifestyle. But it was for a French Sudan school I had to infiltrate - posed as a teacher for four months."

"French Sudan teacher?" she murmured. He opened his mouth to elaborate but she shook her head. That's right, no details; he'd forgotten her little quirk. She didn't want to know, even though he was completely willing to spill state secrets for her. At least one of them was smart.

"Anyway, I know things. I just don't know dogs."

"I think that's abundantly clear. You don't seem to know any of the normal things. Sugary breakfast cereals or maple syrup or pop culture. You don't have any idea what normal people do, do you?"

"I know one thing," he answered, a little too pleased with how easily he'd managed to circumvent their conversation. "I know one normal thing to do."

"What?"

"Will you hold my hand?" he asked then, nudging his fingers in her direction. She glanced down at his hand as if in revulsion, like she'd seen a particularly large rock python. He reached out and caught her free hand anyway, tangling his fingers with hers. "This is normal, isn't it?"

She let out a long breath, eyes still on his hand, not shaking him off.

He smiled and turned his head, watching the darkness of the tunnel they were riding through, knowing it would give her the same opportunity to study him. Only fair.


	7. Chapter 7

It was four in the morning when they made it to her neighborhood, and Castle was feeling it. Beckett pushed her key into the weather-beaten security door in the downstairs lobby of her building, and it was all he could do not to take over, rush her through it, get them upstairs again.

He wasn't tired - no, exactly the opposite. He was up, alert, more awake than he'd been in Ireland even when he was running away from a car bomb. She did this to him, Beckett, and he liked the way his attraction to her amped his blood.

She preceded him up the stairs and he watched the slinky material slide across her hips. He wanted to reach out and touch it, press his hands to the heat of her beneath the dress. He had a thousand dirty thoughts zipping in his blood and popping through his head, rainbow bursts of want.

When they were both at her hall and she was digging the flat silver key out of her bra, he couldn't help but come in tight at her back and frame her waist with his hands, his mouth dropping to hover at her neck.

She paused, the key in her fingers at the door, and he slid his palm forward to press into her belly, bunching the material under his fingers so he could feel her. She took a normal, sedate breath and let it out, her free hand coming up to tangle with his, hold him there, and then she slid the key into the lock.

He touched his lips to her neck as the door swung inward, breathed hotly over her skin until he felt it ripple at his nearness. He loved how she responded to him, how her body went still when he got near the places she wanted him to be, cautious and waiting and ready to make him if he didn't do something she liked.

Castle nudged her across the threshold, walking her into the entry with her body curving backwards into his. She fit him in ways he hadn't seen coming, and even like this, a little awkward and turned on, they were seamless.

He pushed the door closed with his foot and stayed at her back to seduce her neck, inching her skirt up a little more so that he could feel the fabric rasp across his pants. She swayed a moment and then dropped the key onto the kitchen counter, her head falling back. He brushed his lips to her chin and then the corner of her mouth and she sighed like he was doing it exactly right.

When she turned to face him, his hand slid along the curve of her waist and right under the material of her low-back dress, his fingers caressing her ass. She hummed and rocked her hips into his groin, her mouth opening along his neck and tasting him. Castle fingered the crease of her ass and drew his other hand up to her neck, fisting her short hair, before he claimed his kiss.

She went as slowly as he did, her tongue exploring, her mouth generous and giving over to him. He found the sweet place where the gum she'd chewed had left that tang of mint and then the rich and dark spot where her need began to vibrate up her throat and into him. He dragged her closer to him, her heels clattering on the wood floor, and just when he moved to grasp the hem of her dress, there was a ferocious animal sound that splintered them apart.

"Fuck, it's your dog," she gasped. But she stood her ground before the beast who had appeared from some hiding place in the apartment. "Hurry up, Castle, and name the bastard so I can tell it to shut up."

He let go of the fistful of her dress, sighing, and the dog stopped barking. When Richard reached for her hand, it gave a whine of warning in the back of its throat. To experiment, Castle stepped into Beckett and wrapped his hand at the nape of her neck, and again the wolf bared its teeth, hackles rising, even going so far as to crouch like he might pounce.

"Shit, I think he's protective of you," Castle muttered.

"No. Not-uh. I want to fuck you - and you to fuck me - and that does not work for me. You tell him."

Castle shot her a look, but she glared and put her hands on her hips. He tuned back to the dog. "Uh, look. Wolf? Huh, that doesn't seem like a good idea, does it? No point in reminding you that you're half wild animal that could tear out a man's throat, is there? How about we think of something fun and soothing? Sparkles?"

The dog growled, razor-sharp canines bared.

Castle knew enough not to get down on his knees, knew enough about wild animals and wolves to know that he had to assert his dominance. He reached out and gripped the dog by the back of the neck, shook him by his ruff.

"Listen up. She's mine. Not yours. Got it?"

The wolfdog whined and squirmed, trying to throw him off, but Castle kept a firm grip. He'd not been interested in who was master and that shit before, and the two of them had existed side by side - lone wolves. Now that Beckett was in the room, the beast wanted a pack.

"Beckett, come here. Show him you're mine and not his."

"Did you just say I was yours?"

"In wolf. Come on. You know how it works."

"I think maybe you're mine," she said back. Beckett stepped into him and reached out, gripped him by the back of the neck, squeezing hard. She brought her face down close to his as he was bent over the dog and she whispered into his ear. "Aren't you mine? I do what I want with you, Castle, and you better take it, bitch."

"Fuck," he whispered, blinking hard. She let go of him with a serene smile and patted the back of his neck, and then she grazed her teeth along his ear and nipped.

Castle let go of the dog in almost reflex, and immediately the thing whined and dropped to all fours, belly crawled towards Kate with its tail brushing back and forth.

"My mistake," he croaked. "He wasn't - he thinks you're the dominant one."

"We already know that's true."

He narrowed his eyes at her and stood up straighter, recovering. "Guess we'll have to lock him in the bathroom when I handcuff you to the bed tonight. Wouldn't want him to get the wrong idea."

She blinked, but she didn't say no.

\-----

He nudged the dog into the bathroom and the thing only stared up at him, baleful and accusing. Richard looked to Beckett and shrugged, using his foot to block the doorway. “He doesn’t like me.”

“You saved his life,” Beckett muttered. “He should adore you.” She crouched down and lifted her fingers to the wolf, stroking it across its nose and around its eyes.

“Naw, actually, that thing saved my life. He ran away from the truck and I followed - and then the bloody British yankers firebombed my crew.”

Beckett lifted her head, her fingers loose around the dog’s muzzle. “You sound like them.”

“Like who?”

“Your crew,” she murmured. Her gaze dropped back to the dog and she leaned in and rubbed it behind its ears, briskly, like she’d had a sudden surfeit of emotion and couldn’t contain it.

“Yeah, I guess. Comes over me like that.”

“Sometimes I forget you’re a spy,” she said, standing up once more.

“You do?” He nudged the dog back again and closed the bathroom door on the wolf. “Not many people can forget something like that.”

“You’re just my - a soldier,” she said. “I took you home because you’d leave, you know? and-”

“Sorry, not leaving.”

She huffed and pushed on his shoulder, got him moving. “Soldier or spy, doesn’t matter to me. You’ll leave eventually, thank God. But tonight. You were most definitely a spy.”

“I killed people, you mean.”

Beckett stopped pushing on him, and he turned around to look at her. Trouble was snarled in her eyes. “You did. You killed four - five? - people tonight.”

“Yes.” More. "Vadim as well."

She chewed her bottom lip and stepped past him for her bedroom; he saw the deliberation in her movements, like she was determined to be okay with it.

He didn’t want her okay with it. “I killed those people, Beckett, because we were in an untenable position.” Shit, when his father found out about this (found out? he probably already knew) Castle was fucked. Seriously fucked. He didn’t want her okay with it.

“An untenable position,” she echoed, turning in her bedroom. Her dress shimmered.

“Our mission was in jeopardy. I did what was necessary to extract us from that situation with the least amount of loss of life.”

“The least-” She stopped and rubbed her fingers against her thigh.

He wasn’t going to say it, but the way she looked at him right then, that flicker in her eyes which suggested she was judging him made him defensive. He cared what she thought of him, and so he said it. “You do that kind of thing often?”

“What?”

“Get yourself in untenable positions.”

Her gaze broke sharply to his. Her mouth opened and closed again and he realized, stupidly, that he had basically told her it was her fault that those men were dead.

Shit, that wasn’t how he'd meant it. He only wanted her to see that this shit was suicidal without back-up. Dangerous even with back-up, and while the thrill of that rush was something he chased after too, he didn’t go in blind and defenseless.

“Kate. I did what was necessary. I don’t take pride in it, but I don’t second guess it either. You’re alive. I’m alive. There are diamonds in my pockets that you’ll bring in to Vice come Monday morning, and then you’ll shut down a human trafficking ring. Whatever the story has to be - that’s what it will be.”

She stiffened, and he knew she didn’t like that at all - the lies that would wreathe what would be her big break. But what the fuck could be done about it? She’d made her bed.

Just when he thought it was over for tonight, that she was going to curl up into that mistake and camp out there, like she often did with her mother’s case, she stepped into him.

Her fingers circled his wrist. Her hair - short though it was - still blocked her face from his view now that her heels were off. Flat-footed and standing so close, she smelled like vodka and cigars and something sweet he couldn’t name or understand.

“You know those flexible cuffs?” she said.

He missed a beat and then he framed her hips with his hands, slowly tugged on her until they bumped together. “Beckett, love, I don’t need foreplay,” he answered, sliding his fingers around to the back of her dress again, slipping down to her ass.

She lifted her head with a stern line in her chin, her brow furrowed. “The purple ones aren’t serious enough for this.”

“Not serious-”

“My officer cuffs are in my coat pocket, thrown over the chair in the living room. Those are the ones. That’s what this deserves.”

Deserves.

Because of what she’d done.

And something dark and dangerous and infuriated with her rose up in him, and it said she deserved it. She deserved to be handcuffed to her bed so he could show her what she meant to him, what she’d miss if she kept on like this, what kind of fire she was playing with.

“I’ll go get them," he rasped. "You get ready for me.”

\-----

She was only wearing panties, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her elbows on her knees. Her hair was in her face, screening it, but her limbs were elongated even folded up, the lines of her body like a precise puzzle, each piece fitting together intricately.

He wanted the key.

And those perfect breasts.

She lifted her head and saw the cuffs in his hand, held out like an offering, and her eyes dilated.

“This,” he said. “This is what this deserves?”

“Yes.”

“You need to turn around.”

She gave him a moment’s flaring resistance in that look, all sharp sparks. Richard stepped forward quickly, flipped back into mission mode.

“You will turn around, Beckett, and you will offer me your wrists.”

“No.”

“Baby, it wasn’t a question.”

She snorted, an eyebrow raised. “Behind my back means-”

“Either we work out what this deserves, or we fuck around with it. You think this is funny?”

She lifted up on her knees, gaining height. “Nothing that happened tonight was funny. Those men are dead, Castle.”

“Those men are dead. Turn around.”

On her knees on the mattress, her eyes two flames and her breasts impossibly arousing with every rise of her chest, every expanse of her lungs as she fought to control her breathing, she finally set her jaw and turned around.

He stepped into the bed and touched her shoulder, running his hand down her arm to her wrist. The play of her muscles under her back as he moved her wrist made his cock stir. Her fingers unfurled from the fist she’d made and it was like she was reaching for him, like she wanted to touch him.

She wouldn’t be allowed.

He pushed the cuff against her wrist and it swung out and around, snapping closed just like that. She was shivering but so tensed against it that the bed trembled. Keeping her cuffed wrist close to her spine, he leaned in and brushed the hair off her neck, pressed his lips to her back.

“Rick.”

He ignored her, sliding his hand along the curve of her shoulder and down to her clavicle, skimming his fingers inward to her sternum and between the valley of her breasts, watching his hand. The hitch of her breath made him deeply pleased, and he pulled her body back against his chest.

She was off-balanced like this, her shoulders too far past her knees so that she was forced to lean on him for support. His cock was brushing her lower back in this position, and he had a heady rush of foreshadowing, knowing the time would come some day that he’d push inside her to prove he’d saved her ass, push deep and tight right inside that narrow, vulnerable space.

For now, he’d take her from behind because the cuffs were enough, not being allowed to see him or touch him was enough.

“Rick?”

He stayed silent, tensed his arm around her neck and dangled his fingers between her breasts to trap her against him. She was breathing hard now, shallow pants that sounded like the fine line between panic and arousal, and he lowered his head to her ear.

“Give me your other wrist.”

Her free hand came back against him immediately, her arm bumping against his thigh and tantalizingly close to his cock. He snapped the cuff around her wrist before she could find him and he twisted the chain to bind her arms tighter. It brought her breasts up and her breath came sharply, her body shivering against his.

“There are a few ways this can be done,” he said quietly, still talking close at her ear. “You could be allowed to turn around and ride me. Your hands would then be able to balance against my knees.”

She whined something in her throat that he knew she hadn’t meant to release because her head turned into him and her forehead pressed into his neck.

“But I’m not going to let you do that, love.”

She sucked in a breath but her response didn’t come, wouldn’t, it seemed.

“I could back you up against the door and rattle the frame by fucking you hard. You'd only be able to grasp the door knob for support.”

She moaned, her mouth open against his neck, her body sinking as her knees stopped holding her up. He tightened his arm around her to keep her close.

“But I won’t do that either. No, tonight, Kate, you’re going to lean forward on the bed here and take it.”

She gulped and lifted her head like she was going to say something, but he shoved her forward before she could speak. He saw the flare of I’m gonna fall panic before her forward momentum was cut short by his grip on the cuffs.

“Oh, God,” she moaned, bowed forward on her knees.

“You see now, don’t you? How it will be.”

She was pitched forward, her arms pulled back and straining, and he knew it would have to be fast and hard to keep her from tearing ligaments or damaging joints. Because she would; she wouldn’t say a thing even if it killed her because she took a fucking like a damn mission and she got more intensity and pleasure from that denial than anything else.

“Rick,” she rasped.

He gave in to that plea and placed his hand between her shoulder blades, planted his feet wide on the floor beside the bed. She was breathing hard now, shaking, her head bowed nearly to the mattress. He drew his hand down her spine slowly, letting her feel every whorl of his fingers as they bumped over her vertebrae, until he got to her ass.

He teased lightly at her crack, making her wonder, making her gasp and thrust her hips like she was trying to escape him. It strained her shoulders as she tugged against the cuffs, but she got her balance once more, spreading her knees on the mattress. In that awkward cramp bent forward, her ass was presented to him.

He brushed his fingers over the soft skin of her anus. “Not today. You don’t deserve it today.”

She let out a noise that sounded like a sob, and he laid his hand that was fisted in the cuffs against the small of her back, resting there. Now all the weight rested on her; the pitch of her body made her tremble and sway.

He flipped his wrist and went straight to her sex.

“Oh, fuck,” she gasped.

He teased her between her legs, sliding the soaking wet, slippery arousal around in her folds, back along her ass when she began moaning. Her sounds were wild and unchecked, her head bowed so far forward that it made her ass like a glistening, perfect lure.

Castle stepped in closer so that she could feel his cock nudge her and she keened.

“Please, please,” she begged. “I can’t stand this. You’re too quiet, you aren’t saying anything.”

He trailed her arousal around her flank and to her hip, a wet line, keeping quiet because he wanted so badly to talk to her, to say it, to say what burned in him, but he couldn’t. Even like this, she’d never accept or believe or want it.

I love you.

He pressed his fingers into that soft crease of her thigh and then between her legs again, rocked her hips back into his cock as he rubbed sharply down to her slit.

She let loose with a strangled noise. “Please, Rick, love, please just - You always - always - please say something. Anything, anything, please-”

“You come when I tell you, Kate, and not a moment before.”

He tightened his grip on the cuffs and pulled her back into him, and then he thrust inside her.

\-----

She tightened so fiercely around his cock that he had to grit his teeth to withstand it.

But she didn’t come.

She was shaking so hard that he knew he had to get on with it, but he had to take a second, had to grip her by the cunt and hold her to him just to keep from going wild and doing her real damage.

She was moaning continuously, the sounds drawn out of her and on-going, rumbling in her body and vibrating in his cock. She was so undone that he couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t not fuck her.

He slipped his fingers around in her sex to feel his cock there, to remind himself of what this was for, and then he started to thrust. She groaned and jerked up, the chain in his hands like reins. Her hips gyrated wildly as she tried to meet his rhythm. He used his fingers in her cunt to guide her back into him, her body hot and desperate and unceasing.

He fucked her hard, intently, grinding into her with every grunting whine of her breath, reminding her of whose she really was, who she belonged to, whose body she kept flinging into the abyss.

She was making those high-pitched, agonized noises now, the kind that told him she was close and trying to stave it off. He was rutting into her like an animal, forcing her to recognize him, forcing her to know him, forcing her to admit that she couldn’t fucking do this to him - throw it all away.

She started to beg. I need you, I need you to let me come, oh please, give it to me, oh fuck, please, harder .

He torqued his body into hers with a growl and brought his hand up to grip her breast, squeezing tightly, a rough pass and reminder to come back here later. And then he wrapped his fingers around her neck.

She was practically weeping, around his cock and into the night, and he felt her pulse fluttering wildly at his thumb.

Or maybe that was his. His heart was throbbing. He was the strongest man in the world, and she was his.

He yanked her back against his chest, letting go of the cuffs to cup her sex and hold her to him.

“Please,” she whimpered. Her eyes were closed like she didn’t think he’d ever let her come.

“You always bring back-up,” he growled.

“Always, always, baby, I swear, please just make me come.”

He pressed his fingers to her clit and laid his mouth at her neck. “You can come.”

And then he thrust his cock so deep inside her that she screamed and orgasmed around him. Like a broken thing, jerks and spasms he had to grit his teeth through. He managed to thrust twice more before his own climax broke over him in teeth-gritting intensity.

The world went white.

\-----

He fought hard to keep himself aware, functioning, and upright because he didn’t want to hurt her more than she needed. He pulled himself roughly out of her body and his seed spilled across the back of her thighs. She trembled, and he caught her before she could collapse to the mattress.

“I got you, baby. I got you.”

He kissed her neck as he lowered her to sitting, her unconscious flinch letting him know her shoulders were strained. She was breathing hard and shivering fiercely, and he realized the fucking key to her cuffs was in the inside pocket of her coat.

Damn it.

He snagged the metal hair clip from the bedside table, twisted it violently to break it apart. He used the narrow spring like a lockpick tool and the flat piece to work the tumblers, and he forced the cuffs open. Her arms jerked when the cuffs released, and she whimpered, burying her face into her pillow.

“Here we go, love. Let me help.” Castle pressed her back into his chest, held her arms at her side to keep her from pulling them around defensively and making the pain worse.

She shuddered as he kneaded the muscles of her shoulders, both of them sitting awkwardly in bed, naked and sweat-slicked and stained with sex. He kicked up the covers with a foot, unwilling to let go of her, and dragged them up closer until he could snag a corner. He pulled it around her waist for now, kept her close to his chest to keep her warm.

She quit trying to keep it together and finally sucked in a hard breath, a gulping sob at the end of it that he pretended hadn’t come out of her mouth. She curled and turned into him and he worked her hands around in front of her, clasped her wrists together as he nuzzled the side of her neck.

“You’re okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, Kate, and you’re safe. You’re fine, sweetheart, just a little intense.”

She nodded against him, still wordless, and he reached down for the blanket, pulled that up around them as well. Her body wasn’t shaking quite as much, but he laid them down together, turning her to face him and drawing the covers up like a cocoon.

Her eyes were open and she was watching him.

He worked himself closer, sliding his knee between her thighs and wrapping his arm around her waist and bracing her back. She came in so close that he couldn’t see the dark moon of her eyes any longer, but he could still feel her awake and silent and struck.

I love you , he breathed into her temple, closing his eyes. I love you and now you know how much.

She snaked an arm out from the blankets and slid it between them, her palm hot against his chest. She pressed her hand to his neck and laid there, and he sensed the moment that her eyes closed and she accepted it, all of it, even if she still said nothing.

When her body stopped vibrating with sex, when it was just the boneless satiation and the final release of awareness, he brushed his lips across her cheek and dared to put sounds to the thing. A name in the air for what it was, what it had most likely always been.

“Love.”

She sighed and fell straight to sleep, her fingers curved at his neck and holding on.


	8. Chapter 8

He realized she was awake only after she pulled her arm into her chest and shifted. He’d been daydreaming maybe, or just wishing too hard for things that weren’t possible, and so he’d missed that first moment.

Now she was yawning and stretching against him, legs straightening out under the covers. She rolled into him but her eyes were closed. “Time’s it?” she rasped.

“Sun’s about to rise,” he whispered, brushing his lips along her temple.

She hummed and wrapped both of her arms around him, working one under his neck and the other at his shoulder and hugging him close. It wasn’t what he’d expected.

“Do you have to be in?” he said, barely daring to breathe.

“Nope. I have Saturday shift, course,” she mumbled. “But it means I’m off today.”

“Oh,” he murmured around it. His heart was flipping in his chest. He thought maybe this had been the first time he’d admitted to himself, clearly and without any pretensions, that he was in love with her.

He didn’t know if it changed anything, or him, or her, but the day felt vulnerable.

“Do you need to-”

“Shhhh,” she hushed, nudging her nose against his adam’s apple. “Gonna fall back asleep. You don’t talk.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered. She grunted and pinched the back of his neck but her heart wasn’t in it because it barely made a dent. He rubbed her back, shifting slowly to keep from jostling her, and he tried to get a better position.

“What’re you doing?” she muttered.

He froze.

Kate pulled back her head and squinted one baleful eye. “No, no. Get it out now, Rick. Stretch or whatever the hell you’re doing. Cause I’m going back to sleep and I don’t want you wriggling like a kid. Otherwise you can go to the couch.”

"Right, yes, sorry." He winced but he shifted onto his back and slid his arm under her to bring her with him. “I didn’t want to move you from me.”

She had lifted an eyebrow, but her head tilted back down to his chest. Her body was sprawled half on top of him, and as her leg came up at his thigh, he reached down and hooked his fingers behind her knee.

“You better?” she muttered.

He wriggled a little to make her laugh - and she did, though it was more like a huff - and he grinned. “Better.”

“Wiggle worm.”

“What?” he chuckled.

“My mom used to call me that. When I was a kid, I’d get in bed with her and I was so restless...”

Castle didn’t say anything, though he knew she was regretting bringing up her mother. He wondered what Kate would have been like if her mother was still alive, if that hadn’t happened to the Beckett family.

She probably wouldn’t put up with him, wouldn’t be the kind of woman to understand what it was he had to be.

So he changed the subject before she could fall into that restlessness that came over her when her mother was mentioned. “You could have asked Royce,” he said quietly. “You need back-up when you go in like that, Beckett. Even if Royce said shit about me, he’d back you up. I’ve seen him with you.”

She stiffened.

Oops, maybe that wasn’t any better.

“I don’t want him to - no,” she said.

“You need somebody, baby,” he sighed. “I - wish it could be me.”

She flattened her hand against his chest and he knew his heart was beating too hard, but he couldn’t have helped it. He had needed to saysomething. That had been the least damaging - I wish it could be me.

“I don’t need anyone,” she said. But her hand was pressing hard into his skin and canceling that out pretty clearly.

“Royce could-”

“No.”

He didn’t know how he could possibly leave her if she wouldn’t take back-up. “Are you doing this on purpose? To blackmail me into ditching my post all because you won’t call Royce and make him do his job?”

“No. You don’t understand,” she croaked. Her head turned into his chest and she drew her arms in. “You don’t understand.”

“He’s your damn training officer. He should be-”

“Shut up,” she hissed, pushing up off his chest. He snaked his arm around her and pulled her back down to him, ignoring her grunt of protest.

“I don’t understand? So tell me. Because you got no one who backs you up, Beckett. When I can’t be here.”

“Well now I have a fucking dog, okay? Isn’t that enough?”

“A dog is not a support system. And that dog is such a coward, he’d let you do whatever the hell you wanted.”

She was silent and he realized she’d avoided the subject with that stupid dog, and so he growled at her and rolled over on top of her, pressing his hips into hers.

“So tell me why,” he said quietly, intently. He let the anger drop - she’d gotten the message anyway - and he framed her face with his palms, hovering above her. He caressed her cheeks with his thumbs and touched his lips to hers. “Tell me why your training officer lets you work until you faint and not report getting shot and doesn’t have your back inside a Russian mafia's gambling den.”

“He didn’t - he has no say in what I do.”

“I know, baby, I know. It’s not about having say over you. It’s about keeping you out of a body bag. You’re gonna go on these fucked-up operations, you’re balls to the wall, and I fucking admire it, I do. So take him with you.”

“No, I can’t be - can’t be in his debt, Rick. I can’t.”

He stared down at her and there was nowhere for her to avoid him. So she closed her eyes, a huff of her breath that pushed her breasts up into him.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay, you can’t be in his debt.” But you can be in mine?

“He - he didn’t...”

Castle skimmed his fingers over her cheek and her eyes slowly opened. “He said no,” Castle murmured, remembering that statement.

She untangled her hand from the sheets and pressed it over her eyes, her body stiff and unforgiving. He averted his gaze, shifted off of her so that she didn’t have to look at him. She was very still suddenly, and he realized maybe she thought he was leaving her to it, leaving.

“No, I'm not leaving, never,” he murmured, sliding his arm around her and spooning up behind her back. She relaxed only marginally, and he got even closer, brushing her hair off her neck and touching his mouth under her jaw. “Never.”

She loosened her arms and he could wind his hand up into hers, cradle her close.

And then her voice came, unexpected but serious. “I was - stupid - and I - read it all wrong. Or he just - thought it was wrong. He said he got caught up.”

Castle’s breathing hitched.

“He was - we were - at his apartment, a beer after a 911 call that just gutted me out. I’d only had one because I knew what I wanted and it wasn’t beer. He’d had - okay a couple, but not enough to...”

He felt a sudden and awful burning in his chest. For what happened next.

“I’m good at making a guy crazy and I took what I wanted. I sucked him off, gave it to him, what I knew he couldn’t refuse, and when I stood up and stripped off my shirt - he wanted me and then he didn’t want me.”

Oh, God.

“He got off the couch and walked to the door, buckling his pants. He couldn’t be - I can’t be what you need, Officer. That’s how he said it. His hand on the knob - so I left.”

He wanted to break things; he wanted to hunt down that bastard right now and lay into him. He had even shifted a knee as if to spring into action, but then he stopped. Because getting up and leaving her wasn’t happening.

But he’d find Mike Royce. Oh, yes. That was a promise. “I’m gonna fucking tear off his balls and shove them down his throat for-”

“Fuck you,” she snarled, elbowing him off of her. She turned around in the bed and shoved him. Hard. “It’s not your - it’s over. I only told you to get you off my back about taking him anywhere. Because he isn't what I need, Richard.”

He didn’t move, didn’t let her push him out of bed or even an inch away from her. He reached out and snagged her by the wrist, pulled her back down against him even as she tried to punch her way clear.

“Lie down, Beckett. Don’t make me handcuff you to the headboard.”

She was glaring at him, but he rolled back on top of her, pressed her hands over her head. She bucked into him and he tilted his head as if he was amused.

He wasn’t. He was fucking enraged with Mike Royce, but she needed someone who would damn well stay. And it was going to be him.

For tonight anyway. For right now. What he had, he'd give it to her.

“Chill out,” he said. “So you told me something personal, something embarrassing, something intimate. Because you know you can trust me, just as I trust you. You saw me murder five people tonight. I think we’re more than even.”

Her jaw worked and he knew her resistance was melting, or at least she wasn't quite as wounded. The wound was there, of course it was, but it wouldn’t be him wounding her.

“So Royce is off the list,” he said. “Good. It’s only me. And it better stay only me.”

He finally shifted off of her and arranged her back into the cradle of his body, not putting up with a moment more of her resistance. He was just fucking tired of tiptoeing around her. At least at this moment.

He wrapped his arm around her and shifted his knee between her thighs, getting close and tight.

“Now, you’re supposed to be going back to sleep. Sleep, Beckett.”

She still didn’t say anything, and even though he was certain she wouldn’t be falling asleep any time soon, she didn’t move away either.

Good enough.

\-----

She didn't fall asleep, of course, but after a long while of huddled misery, she sighed.

"Okay," she said quietly.

"What."

"Okay. Even." She unhooked his arm from hers and then she was turning around in bed, coming back into him, pressing herself closer. Hiding a little, he thought, but he considered that a step above hiding away from him.

"Even," he breathed. Not, okay, I'll find back-up. But maybe she'd consider her options before dressing up and hitting a club in the hopes of attracting all the wrong attention (even if Royce wasn't an option). More importantly, she wasn't holding herself away from him, punishing him for caring what happened to her.

"Can we forget it?" she muttered.

"No," he said, too honestly. But it wasn't supposed to be forgotten; it was critical and awful and he never wanted it to happen to her again. "But it doesn't change anything. He's still a prick and you're still in bed with me."

He might have smirked at the end of that statement.

"That sounds suspiciously like, you're still mine."

"If it did that's only because it was exactly what I was thinking."

She pinched his ear and he laughed, the little broken pieces in his chest tinkling as they shifted, reordered to be more okay with this.

"What?" he said, dodging her grip. "I can't help it if that's completely restored any wounded pride I might have had over the first time we got together."

"What are you talking about - wounded pride? We fucked all week, Castle."

"Yeah, but that first time," he hummed, could practically feel the memory enveloping him now like her warm mouth around him. "You sucked me off and I was so stunned stupid by you, Beckett, it took me an eternity to get my shit together, and then we were interrupted, and then you kicked me out. But it sounds like that's the best response you've gotten yet."

"You're an ass," she hissed.

He caught her wrist before her fingers could do serious damage and he rolled to put himself half on top of her, pressing her down against the mattress. "I am an ass. I can be. All for you, Beckett, baby."

"Aren't I special?" she snarked.

"You are," he murmured, kissing her softly. "Singular. Appealing. Intelligent. Strong." He stopped because she was rolling her eyes, but he thought she might still be listening despite herself. "Thank you for telling me what happened. I - feel honored, Kate. Gives me hope."

"Hope?"

For us.

He shrugged and kissed her again, a dusting of his mouth over hers, ignoring that.

"Honored," she murmured, her disdain leaking out around the sigh that trembled between them. Her arm snaked around his neck and she opened her eyes to him. "I think that's what it was tonight. When we were in Brighton Beach. Now we're even."

What about Brighton Beach made her feel honored?

She curled her arm a little tighter and it brought him close, moth to the flame of her lips, and he forgot for a moment that she'd been confessing, remembered only the taste of her against his tongue.

Her fingers caressed his jaw. "I've never seen you - at your job, before," she murmured then. "It was an honor."

Oh.

Castle wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck.

\-----

It took him longer than he'd like to admit to remember the dog trapped in the bathroom. Castle heard the thing whining first and then scratching at the door, and so he slid out of bed and padded barefoot towards the bathroom.

Before he opened the door and let the thing out, Castle thought better about being naked, went back into the bedroom for a pair of pants. He couldn't remember where his clothes had gone, what he'd done with them, but he opened the bottom drawer of Beckett's bureau and found exactly what he needed.

Boxer briefs and a pair of sweats, both brand new, his size, and smelling clean and sharply of laundry.

Beckett had bought him clothes? He'd managed weekends and day trips and - but Beckett had bought him sweats and boxers. Not dress shirts, clearly, since he'd borrowed her father's, but she had wanted things here for him.

Shit, it was turning his insides to jelly.

Castle yanked on the boxers and then the sweats as well, moved back into the hallway where the dog had taken to scratching again. Beckett would kill him if the dog marked up her wood. He twisted the knob and the wolf happily trotted out, tail wagging so hard it made an audible thump against the frame of the door.

"Hey there, you rotten animal," he muttered, leaning over to pet the dog absently. It was still mostly dark outside, but the wolf's eyes gleamed in the dim hall, halos of red in his irises. That sudden image of a predator made Castle's hand go still on the top of the beast's head, and he dropped to one knee to regard the thing.

Mangy, rough brown coat with a white underbelly, black around his face, the dominant coloring dark. Black tips to his ears. Eyes that looked to be a strange shift between blue and green, and they were steadily regarding Castle.

He cupped the dog's face and rubbed his thumbs down the wolf's muzzle. "You're gonna stay here, you bastard. You get me? Stay with Beckett. Be her back-up."

The wolf blinked and shook him off, sinking down to stretch his front legs like a cat. When the dog came back up, ready and alert, there was no cat in him at all - only pure and animal predator, a beast of the wild, ready to slink off between the trees.

Castle wondered where the hell he'd come from, what he'd been doing with their crew in Ireland. He had the vague notion that the dog hadn't been anyone's really at all, that a dog like this couldn't belong to a person.

"You and Beckett will get along," he muttered, standing up once more.

He moved back for the bedroom and the dog trotted easily at his side, warm and solid. When they crossed the threshold, the thing jumped up onto the bed and stood over Beckett, staring at Castle as if in challenge.

"Yeah, that's gonna have to change, you mongrel."

Castle got back in bed and pushed his feet into the bottom of the covers, shoving on the dog as he did. The wolf neatly side-stepped Castle's legs and remained perched near Beckett, separating Castle from her.

"Move," he whispered fiercely. "Right now."

The dog ignored him and settled down at the foot of the bed, creating a gulf. Castle eyed the thing and then he laid down on his back, on his own side, but he slid his arm under Kate and drew her into him.

She gave a soft noise and curled at his chest, circumnavigating the dog entirely.

"Ha," Castle muttered. The dog only stared at him, watchful and assessing. "She's not yours. Not only yours anyway."

\-----

"Why's it so hot?" she mumbled, her lips dragging across his chest as she turned.

"The damn dog," he sighed.

Kate cracked open an eye and lifted up on an elbow, peering down at the foot of the bed. Castle glanced down as well, saw the wolf asleep - or feigning it - on top of the covers.

"Oh," she said. He watched in stunned surprise as she merely laid back down again. Though this time not on top of him, on her own side of the bed. She curled an arm around her own pillow and her jaw cracked wide on a yawn. "Time's it?"

"Is that always your question when you wake in the morning? What time is it?"

"Guess you're not here enough to know, are you?" She was flopping out an arm to smack him as she said it, but even through the snark, he felt it like a sting.

"Guess not. And it's only seven."

"You say only like you think that will keep me in bed," she muttered, sitting upright and rubbing her eyes.

Castle sighed and debated dragging her back down with him, but he didn't think she'd go for it. But pleading and begging, she'd tolerate that - she might even instigate some third base that he could easily take all the way home - and she'd think it was her idea too.

"Can't we stay right here?" he pleaded. "You conked out on me last night. Gotta get it in before I have to leave."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You're insatiable, you know."

"Oh, I do," he agreed readily. "I am. I haven't gotten in my recommended daily allowance."

"Of sex," she said, one slim eyebrow arching.

"Of you. Well, sex with you. I've never had this problem before. Like I'm walking around with a vitamin Beckett deficiency."

She rolled her eyes and reached out, gripped his hair on top of his head only to shove him back down into his pillow. When she stood and reached for a thin, white cover-up on the chair beside her bed, Castle snaked out a leg and hooked it around her knee.

She huffed as she dipped, but she got a hand to the mattress and kept from falling. She flicked his ear for it but she leaned over him, her breasts swaying appealingly, and kissed his earlobe. "Come shower with me, then. Since you're insufferably deficient."

"Yes," he hissed, jumping up out of bed and beating her to the door. "Let's go, Beckett. Time's a-wasting."

\-----

She stayed close in the shower, her hands at his hips as if she needed to keep him near at all times. She’d twisted her hair back to keep it out of the spray, and a tendril had snaked around her neck and channeled a river of water down between her breasts.

Castle stood before her with his head bowed forward, a soporific weight over him. They breathed slowly together, cheeks brushing, fingers making aimless circles, neither of them able to move, neither wanting to. Being close was just so good, so intimate and intense.

He’d wanted to fool around with her, but something about her naked body in the water and the heat, something about the night they’d had and the confession she’d given this morning made this sacred, made it vulnerable.

He wanted only to have her close.

Kate rubbed her thumb at the skin of his side, just above his hip, and it flared like lightning deep in his bones.

“Kate,” he murmured.

“I thought you were sex-deficient, Richard,” she smirked. Her eyebrow lifted and her body shifted closer, and of course his cock rose to meet her. “Oh, there we are. Hello.”

“Did you just greet my cock?”

She slid her fingers inward to the thatch of hair at his groin. “I like him,” she said. “He knows what I want. He always delivers.” She made a slow tease around the base of him.

He sucked in a breath, his eyelids drooping with arousal as she rubbed her fingers at his inside thigh, her nails bumping his balls. “He - uh - he... naw, I can’t do it. You wanna talk about it like it’s a mind of its own, fine. Just don’t name my cock, Beckett. That’s all I ask.”

“Oh?”

Uh-oh. That sounded like a challenge.

She laughed softly and the water cascaded around them, seemed to flare suddenly with force. He realized it was only that Kate had moved, and when he opened his eyes he saw she had soap in her hands.

“What are you-”

She rubbed her silky, sudsy hands over his thighs and straight to his cock.

“Oh,” he gulped.

“When you’re in control, you have a lot of words for me, Rick. But when I’m in control, you mostly grunt.”

He blinked and stared down at the place where her hands were working, the soap and the strength of her fingers, the thick and vivid pulse of his cock between them. The feel of silk and satin and her hands.

“And now not even grunts,” she murmured.

He found himself swaying in the shower, but damn her freestanding bathtub - he had nothing to hang on to but her. Castle gave in and clamped his hands on her shoulders, sucking in a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

She lifted her hand and circled her fingers around his wrist, pulled his touch down her body. He caught on fast, managed to slide his hand between her legs and push inside her with this fingers. Kate gasped, apparently not quite expecting that, and he grinned as he nudged deeper. More with it now, focused again.

“Whoa,” she breathed, her forehead falling to his shoulder. Her belly brushed his erection and her hand worked him, holding herself upright by his cock.

“We gonna do it like this?” he murmured.

“Yeah,” she swallowed. “Yeah, I - yes. Oh, you - you know just how to touch me.”

He grinned and shifted his leg between her thighs, resting the back of his hand at his quad and using it to flex deeper into her sex. She groaned but started pumping his cock, slick and fast. His smile dropped off his face at the burn of her hand around him, how immediate and desperate his response was.

Didn’t have a mind of its own, not at all. This was all him, his own raging lust for her, only her, how damn good she was to him.

“Harder,” he grunted.

“Same,” she gasped.

He arrowed his fingers to penetrate her and she moaned, arching against his chest so that her breasts grazed him. Her fingers clutched at his cock and slipped in the soap and he grit his teeth at the fierce sizzle of his oncoming orgasm.

“No, no,” she muttered. “No good. I gotta - move, Castle.” She knocked his hand away and before he knew what had happened she’d hiked her leg up at his hip and buried his cock inside her.

“Fuck,” he shouted.

She moaned and rocked against him so that his aching cock angled higher.

“Fuck, Kate, that’s-”

“Move.”

He gripped her hip and the inside of her thigh, rammed himself home. She clawed at his back and climbed him with every pump of his hips, little mewling noises erupting from her throat. He worked deeper and harder, wrapped an arm around her neck and put his mouth against her cheek, needing her to be close.

“Are you - you close?” he gasped.

“Go,” she moaned. “Just go, go-”

He groaned as his orgasm swept over him, a wrenching of his will. She whined and wrapped both legs around his waist, forcing him to carry her weight even as his strength left him. He sank to the bottom of the bathtub, unable to keep his balance.

He was half-stunned and still reeling when he realized she was rocking against him still, her body bowed tight and working for her climax. Castle dragged his hand around her back to her hip, fumbled inside to her sex. He pressed his thumb to the hood of her clit and crushed her against his cock.

She keened as she came, fluttering and tightening and riding the last of his climax. Gorgeous.

She fell against his chest and stayed.

He couldn’t even move to turn the water off.


	9. Chapter 9

The water was still hot when he rallied. The good thing about shower sex was they could get pretty nasty but it’d all wash away, down the drain, no sticky bedsheets or wiping off her belly with his shirt.

And keep going.

There was no reason to stop at one orgasm.

Before Beckett could pull herself together, Castle gripped her thigh in one hand and shoulder in the other and he flipped her around, her spine against his sternum. Her legs spread wide to the shower spray.

She gasped as the water hit her sex, but he darted his hands down to her knees and held her open.

“Whoa, fuck,” she moaned, her body arching up to meet the hot water. Her cheek dragged across his stubble in a scraping swipe, and she shuddered, her arm coming up to hook around his neck. “Fuck. Rick. I-”

“Can you hold yourself open?”

“I - don’t know.”

He squeezed behind her knees and adjusted his legs wider, settling her off his lap and at the bottom of the tub so that her lower back trapped his thickening cock. With his own knees drawn up, he could brace hers and keep them wide, freeing his hands.

“What are we-”

He palmed her breasts and squeezed and she cut off with a deep, vibrating groan.

“You like that?”

“Fuck,” she choked.

“Your breasts are more sensitive after you’ve come.”

“Yeah,” she rasped. Her body writhed every time he scraped a thumb across her nipple and each one was a hard, rigid peak. The arch of her spine crushed his cock and he knew he could get off like this, given time.

Castle kneaded her breasts, widening her legs to the spray of the water. It pounded her cunt in a steady, insistent rhythm that he could feel in the tremble of her thighs, against the backs of his hands. She began to whine with every jerk of her hips upward into it, humping the air, seeking the pressure of those hard needles.

He lowered his mouth to her neck and sucked on her skin, nuzzled into her ear. “You’re erotic, Kate.”

She probably couldn’t even hear him, her moans were so loud now, echoing off the tile. She had clutched the sides of the bathtub and the extra leverage it gave her only made her fall back against his cock all the more forcefully.

He could practically feel how this was winding her up, the razor wire of pain and pleasure. He massaged her breasts, felt them full and swollen, felt the water peppering her skin and making her slick.

Her hips danced against his groin and he found himself rocking against her ass, a desperate little move without any real hope of strength to it, not the way his legs trapped hers.

He thumbed her nipples once more and she whined, a growling ripple in her throat. He fisted her breasts and shoved them roughly together, dipped his head over her to tongue her nipple, and then to scrape his teeth across their joined surfaces.

She screamed and arched hard up into the water, tumbled back down against his body with an orgasm that rattled them both.

He held her legs open even as she strained to close them, her teeth grinding, her head thrashing against his shoulder. He held her open and he squeezed her nipples, vicious with them now, remembering exactly how she treated them when she did it herself. He rocked his cock against her back as he forced her open, wider, exposed to the water, and she came with a shout, her ass grinding back against his cock.

He orgasmed into that deep, fisting pleasure, coating her back with his come, the water sluicing between them and draining it away.

She knocked his leg away from her knee and closed her legs with a whimper, turned to curl up against his chest. He slung an around around her shoulders and lifted his foot, used his toes to twist off the water.

Kate let out a breath like relief and slumped against him.

\-----

She seemed drowsy after the shower, and even though her hair had gotten wet, she didn't take it down or try to dry it. He'd pulled sweatpants back on - not knowing what the plan was for today - and she'd picked up one of his t-shirts from the laundry hamper and shrugged it on.

It was such an automatic and instinctive movement that Castle wondered if she did it a lot. Pull on one of his shirts. How many had he left here over the last eight months? Enough that she wore them around in her home, slept in something of his.

When she headed back to the bedroom and crawled into bed, he wasn't surprised. Nothing could surprise him any more, not about this day, not after last night. A barrier had fallen last night and not even Beckett was attempting to put it back up.

He crawled in after her and lowered himself to the mattress, not saying anything. She turned on her side to face him and snagged his hand with hers, played with his fingers for a moment.

"We got in late," she said. "And then - stayed up a little longer."

"Stayed up," he repeated, lips crooked in a smile. "You did a good job of staying up."

Kate untangled from his fingers and slapped his shoulder, but she was holding back that sliver of amusement; he could see it.

From out of nowhere, the dog came silently into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed. Kate lifted her foot from under the covers and nudged the dog back off; the wolf actually went, backing up at first and then giving in and jumping off. He circled back around to Kate's side and lowered himself to the floor with a great sigh.

"Oh, you're fine," she muttered. But she shifted and dropped a hand over the side of the bed, petted the dog.

Castle came up at her back, draped himself at her side with his chin against her collarbone. She lifted her other hand and stroked her fingers through his hair, petting him and the dog at the same time, and he didn't even care.

He felt about as pathetic over her as the dog, and if she wanted to touch him, if she wanted to scratch at his scalp and run her thumb along his eyebrow and play with his ear, he was more than willing.

Castle wrapped an arm around her waist and slipped his fingers under the t-shirt, brushing the soft cream of her skin and feeling the still-damp heat of her sex at the crook of his elbow. She lifted her hips a little, lazy and nudging, and he kissed the side of her breast through the shirt.

Her fingers didn't stop moving over him, caressing his face, petting through his hair, and he closed his eyes.

He wasn't tired, but he could feel how much she was, and soon her hand came to a stop over his ear, palm warm and flat and creating the lulling susurration of ocean noises inside him.

\-----

"Your dog stinks," she whispered into his ear.

Castle grunted and realized he had been dozing on top of Kate. He lifted his head and found the dog had crawled up in the bed with them, cramped into a tight space at the headboard.

"Ah, jeez. That bastard's gonna be impossible to get out of your bed," he sighed.

Kate's lips pressed together but it couldn't dampen her chuckle. "Oh, Richard, can you hear yourself?"

"What?"

She shook her head against the pillow and stroked her fingers along his ear. "Nothing. Never mind. You need to give your dog a bath if he's gonna sleep with us."

"He's not sleeping with us." Castle lifted up on his elbows and reached out to shove the dog away, but the beast snarled at him and showed his teeth. "What. Ever. I fed you steak. I put you on a fucking plane and brought you to her, so the least you can do is get out of her bed, you mongrel."

The dog whined and dropped his head to the mattress, a sad and pathetic look that had Kate sighing and twisting in bed, petting the damn thing instead. "Shh, don't listen to him, Cujo."

"Did you name him?" He was surprised; he’d expected more of a fight.

Kate laughed and rubbed the dog between its ears. "No. You know - Cujo."

"Who is Cujo?"

"Famous dog. From the Stephen King novel? It just means a dog acting crazy."

"Oh."

"You seriously don't know Stephen King? Master of the macabre?"

"Is macabre a real thing?" he muttered, narrowing an eye at her.

She laughed and leaned to one side, her arm reaching for something beside the bed he couldn't see. She triumphantly brought up a book and threw it at his head, but it landed on his back upside down. Castle strained and snagged the edge, pulled it towards him. "The Shining?"

"Cujo isn't in that one, but it's good. You'll like it a hell of a lot better than the Kafka you named yourself for."

"But Castle has such a nice, firm sound to it. Like a man who will fucking take a siege and stand strong."

"What a man you are, now that your name is Castle," she simpered at him.

"Shut up. You know you like it."

"I use it. For lack of anything better. What's - you know, you've never called your father anything other than 'father.' I don't even know his name."

"I don't either," he chuckled, tucking the book under his unused pillow. He liked being right here, his cheek pressed against the rise of her rib. "In his current iteration, he's called John Black. Once, when I was little, I heard someone call him Jack. But I could be wrong."

"Jack... Black?" she laughed.

"What?" Castle glanced up at her and she was doing that thing again, that face that said oh you poor thing. "Is that another pop culture reference I don't know?"

"Yes, it is. You're getting good at detecting those now." She patted his shoulder like a consolation prize. "John Black then. I guess I'd always assumed that saying his name invoked him somehow. He Who Must Not Be Named."

"Why do I get the feeling that's in all capital letters?"

"It is. Another pop culture reference, love. Look at you go."

"You're such a bitch," he laughed. "I hate you."

"I know you do," she grinned back, nudging her knee against his side. She glanced around her room a moment. "I have that book too, but I think it's in the living room."

"More Stephen King?"

She laughed. "No. Wow, you really don't know. Harry Potter."

"Oh, wait. I've heard of him. A guy that flies - a witch."

"Wizard. Yeah. I read them in college - read the first three all in a week when I was supposed to be studying for exams. My room mate was taking Children's Lit at the time and gave them to me."

"They're children's books?" he asked, wrinkling his nose at her.

"Castle, trust me. Your sense of humor? These are perfect for you. In fact, forget The Shining. Read Harry first."

"Huh. Okay. You have that here? I can't take it with me, but I'll read it when I'm back."

She went still, quiet; her face held no more movement and life and warmth, like a candle being snuffed. "Yeah," she said softly. "Here."

"I'll be back," he said defensively. "You've seen what I can do. I'm good."

"Of course you are," she murmured. Her fingers came out to trace his eyebrow. "You're very good. I believe you."

He rested his chin on her sternum and watched her study him. She rubbed her thumb against the curve of his eye socket and cupped his cheek with her palm.

"Kate?"

"Read it when you're here," she said. "It'll be worth it. Even in such small doses."

"I read fast," he promised. "I'll inhale it. I'll make the most of the time I'm here. Besides, I sleep less than you do."

She nodded and craned her neck to push a kiss down to his mouth, soft and delicate, her lips like the veins on a leaf.

\-----

He didn’t like the quiet reserve of her, the way she seemed to have shut him out so completely, the change of her mood from warm and open to simply vacant. She was kissing him, but it was already in good-bye.

So he brought her back.

Castle dragged his body down hers, letting his cheek scrape against her bare stomach as he pushed her shirt up out of his way. She didn’t have panties on, just the thatch of her hair and the still-wet smell of her cunt. He laid over her hips even as she twisted under him, a knee in his ribs, her fingers catching his hair - she didn’t seem to know what to do, how to handle this.

Castle spread her legs with his palms, pressed his elbows into her vulnerable inside thighs to bear her down. He used his thumbs to open her sex to him, saw the juice creaming her folds.

She rippled under him, no sounds yet, still shut off from him, but her body beginning to respond despite herself. He leaned in and blew a slow, cool breath across her cunt and she gasped, hips jerking.

He smiled and rewarded her with a kiss, treating her sex like lips, teasing his tongue to open her to him. She gave a ragged noise. He licked at her, curls of his tongue along her folds, exploring, teasing, tormenting. The taste of her. How quickly she soaked his lips and chin with her arousal.

He thrust along her folds, glided through the sour-sweet of her cream. He kept himself up by bracing his elbows at her inside thighs. She was trembling now, held-back sounds grunting from her, and he let his tongue pierce her sex as his mouth laid against her. And he sucked.

She shouted and clutched his head, curling up and falling back to the mattress in one violent movement. He sucked slowly on her clit, massaging it with his lips, focusing his attention on that slick, hot center where his tongue began to probe. Her hips started to meet his rhythm, short jerks that pressed her into his teeth, and now he heard her - those moans, the sounds she released for him, giving it up.

Castle nibbled on her sex and sucked at her clit until she was incessantly rocking her hips into his face. Then he dragged his thumb through her arousal and coasted between the crushed together cheeks of her ass.

Kate mewled, her body taut under him, and then she shattered with a hoarse cry, falling apart under his mouth.

When he lifted his head, her eyes were hazy and warm on him, and she crooked her fingers and tugged. He crawled up her body and laid at her side, and Kate hummed and drew her leg over his hip, fumbled for his cock.

She leaned into him, her pulse still fluttering in her neck, and she fondled him as she laid there, encouraging and stroking, teasing and playing. Even as she rested on him. She nudged his chin away and kissed him while she thumbed the head of his cock; she sucked lightly on his tongue while she rubbed soft strokes down his erection.

He loved the feel of her hand on him so much that he let it go on and on, reaching down from time to time to wrap two fingers at his base to keep from coming, letting the pleasure build to a burning ache.

She cupped his balls and his cock, she mimicked the movement of her hand with her tongue in his mouth, around and around, and she got hotter and more breathless and needier.

Maybe that was him. Maybe it was both of them.

She bit his bottom lip to break their kiss and then she pulled her head back, staring at him with an unashamed lust and a heartbreaking desperation.

“Now,” she husked.

He shifted on top of her once more and pushed his way inside her.

Kate arched into his thrust, gripping him with her knees, the flat of her hands pressing into his back. She started to tremble, panting under him, begging him with words he barely heard, and then she climaxed in a rush, crying out in a pleading rasp as her body broke against his.

Only when she was satiated and pliant and smiling up at him with such adoration on her face did Castle begin.

\-----

She wrapped her arm around his neck and brought her face close to his, her body still molten around him. He stroked slowly, taking the time to angle his cock just right inside her, feeling the muscles of her sex gripping him.

“Oh, baby,” she murmured at his ear. His heart thumped. “You’re so thick.”

“You’re so hot,” he laughed, not sure why he’d been surprised by that. He was rocking his hips at the end of every thrust. She was groaning, her knees clamped hard at his ribs, and his penetration slid deeper, tighter. “So wet. Gorgeous.”

She moaned, her body clinging to his, and he could feel her winding up again, feel the flickering contractions of pleasure. He loved pumping his hips into her, loved bearing her down and feeling her breasts crushed against him, loved the strong writhe of her body under him. He could fuck her like this for years, but to make her come again, he’d do anything, any position.

Castle shifted to one elbow and brought his hand up from her hip, cupped her breast. She mewled, and he thumbed her nipple, flicking against it until she yelped and her body clamped around him. Her eyes startled open and he leaned down to nip at her bottom lip, tugging to get her attention.

“What?” she rasped.

“Wanna try something?”

“This is good for me,” she said, her eyes wide, innocent. She meant it honestly; there was no artifice or smirk to her lips, there was only the wonder that wrapped them both whenever they came together like this - so fucked that everything was raw.

“I could do this all day,” he murmured, brushing his lips against hers, again and again, until they were prickling and sensitive. She moaned and caught the back of his neck, strained for a deeper touch.

She growled when he lifted up. “Are we doing this or are you trying to kill me?”

He grinned and spread his fingers wider over her breast, encompassing her nipple. “Try something with me?”

“Do you even need to ask?” She rolled her eyes. “Just do it already.”

Castle grit his teeth and pulled out of her, both of them hissing at the withdrawal. He had to drop his forehead to hers, strangely overcome with missing her. “Give me a second,” he rasped. “Gotta get it back under control.”

She lowered her legs from his hips, her movement making him grunt. Her fingers were curled at the nape of his neck and she was breathing deeply, chest rising and falling like maybe she was having just as much trouble with it.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Let’s do this.”

Castle finally lifted up from her, shifted back on his heels. She drew her hands up her own body, squeezed her breasts as she nibbled on her bottom lip. He lifted an eyebrow at her and she grinned, evidently all for teasing him now.

Castle took her right thigh and kneaded her muscle as he lifted the leg. “Up, baby. So your ankle is at my shoulder.”

She was supple, strong, and pretty damn flexible, even as he straddled her left leg. His cock brushed her thigh and her other foot flexed at his ear as if in a caress. “Fun,” she grinned. “Now give it to me. I want it back.”

Her fingers were reaching for his cock, her sex spread for him as he pressed her right leg back. The angle was perfect. All he had to do was line his cock with her entrance and use his knees to lift and thrust inside her.

She moaned, her cunt clutching at him, her breasts flattened and wide as she laid on her back before him. He kept one hand on her raised leg, stroking up and down her thigh, making her skin sensitive. Her straight leg curled in at his ass, and then she thrust.

“Fuck,” he yelped, not at all ready for that.

She moaned. “More. You gotta work for me, baby. I can’t-”

“I got you, Kate,” he rasped. “How about this?” He leaned into her, and she keened, something about this position so right that it seemed to electrify her. She stopped trying to keep pace with him, just made those beautiful mewling noises as he lifted up and into her with every thrust.

“Oh, fuck,” she gasped. “Oh, holy - fuck. Castle. Please.”

He grit his teeth and pushed harder, used his right hand to drag it up her body and catch her hand. Their fingers tangled and her eyes flickered open, staring at him above her.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

“Watch us,” he growled. “Watch me moving into you.”

Her eyes dropped to the place where they were joined; he lowered his head and watched as well, the way his cock disappeared into her cunt, the wet grasp of her arousal. When he lifted his gaze, she was flushed and sweating, her eyes so intent on them that her fingers were clutching his.

“Touch us,” she rasped. “Castle, touch us.”

He groaned and dipped forward, moved their joined hands toward that place where his cock was driving into her. He felt her fingers bumping his thick cock, felt it hit him like lightning, and then she was touching herself with him, both of them, and he couldn’t stand it.

He lost himself.

He fucked her hard, driving into her, their fingers sliding around through her folds, his cock, everything tense and wound tight and brutal. She cried out and arched into him, her core contracting, and then she was splintering in an orgasm so intense he had to grip her thigh and hold her down.

She moaned, a long and drawn-out thing, and then she dragged their joined hands up to her mouth and sucked on his fingers through her aftershocks.

He climaxed with a shout, surprised and turned on by that erotic lick of her tongue, spilling deeply inside her.

\-----

“Dog’s not the only one,” he grunted, on his back and staring up at the ceiling, definitely in the sticky spot.

Beckett laughed at him and wriggled down against his side. “You saying we’re dirty, Rick? Or smelly?”

“No, fuck, no. You smell like me. I like that.”

She had a kind of breathless laugh that didn’t go anywhere, and she nudged her nose into his armpit, inhaled. He grunted and squeezed his arm close to his chest, trapping her to him.

“You smell like sweat and sex,” she said, lifting her head and licking her lips, like it was a taste for her too. “I smell like that?”

“Sweat and sex and then, hmm...” He hooked his arm around her shoulders and hugged her into him, touched his mouth to her forehead. “Petals.”

“Pet- what the fuck are you even saying?”

He laughed and winced through it; fuck romantic. That never worked with her. “Like, flowers. I don’t know. Honeysuckle. You taste like honey - smell like honey, Beckett. Why are you analyzing? I have no brain cells left in me right now. This is unfair interrogation.”

“Honeysuckle?” she hummed, shifting right on top of him now and wriggling up until they were eye to eye. He stared up at her, slowly wrapped his arms around her naked body. He rubbed his hands down her back, squeezed her ass to rock her into him. She felt good; he felt so good when she was pressed against him that he could hardly believe it.

“Yeah,” he rasped. “Heavy, sweet. I stayed at a rehab place called Stone Farm that had honeysuckle hanging right outside my window. I’d been shot and it was the only thing... woke me in the morning, and at night when I couldn’t sleep, it’d come in on the breeze.”

Kate laid her head down against his chest and her fingers stroked absently at his skin. “Shot. Where?”

He brought his hand down to his side, brushed her ribs on his way so that her body rippled at just that small touch. She shifted on top of him and slid off, her palm burning hot against his skin as she traced the fading scar. He watched her study the mark and then she glanced up at him.

“It hurt?”

“Yeah. Gut shots hurt.”

“You’re lucky. Gut shots are usually fatal.”

He grunted noncommittally - he already knew that - but he liked the way she was trailing her fingers over him. Her thumb circled the scar and she palmed his hip.

“What else?” She leaned in and skimmed her lips over the thin, silvery line that crawled up his sternum, her hand still at his hip like she could heal him. “In recovery at that Stone Farm, the honeysuckle in the air. What else?”

“In Turkey,” he choked out, her mouth at his pec and her breath skating across his skin. “A knife. There was a girl and I - couldn’t let her be taken.”

“A girl? Was she pretty?”

He was confused for a moment, and then he realized what she’d heard. “A girl, sweetheart. She was ten or so, and yeah, she was pretty. That’s why they wanted her.”

Kate paused at his chest and her eyes lifted to his. “Oh.” Her lips twisted and real hurt passed over her face, and he loved her. God, he loved her for that, for hurting over a ten-year-old girl from a mission ages ago.

He palmed the side of her face and touched her lips with his thumb. “Yeah, love. There were eight men and I took her from them. Left her with Asya, woman I knew, and she found her a foster home.”

“Oh, God,” she muttered, closing her eyes and leaning into him. He didn’t know why; it had a happy ending.

Kate sighed and pressed her mouth to his chest before laying her cheek against him. He skimmed his fingers through her hair, tangled as it was, and realized they were probably going to have to shower again after all this.

“Every story, Rick.” She shook her head and sat up again, pushing off against his chest. Her fingers traced first one scar and then down to the other, and the close proximity of her hand plus that tenderness on her face made his cock stir. “You tell me these stories and they’re never what I expect, and it just - I don’t know what you are, Rick Castle.”

His brow furrowed as he looked at her, and he couldn’t figure out why that hurt.

One of her legs was curled around his and she leaned in over his hips, a brushing kiss at his ribs where the scar ended. It was one of the few that had never faded. But he figured it probably would, given enough time. All his scars faded.

And then her fingers combed through the hair at his groin and she touched his cock.

He took in a deep breath to keep himself under control, because he could, he could chill out and let her do whatever she was doing.

She rubbed her thumb around the circumference of him and he watched her, surprised by both how erotic it was to be under her scrutiny, and how right. Calming. If she knew him, then maybe it would be okay.

Beckett sighed and cupped his cock in her palm and then she lowered her mouth and kissed him, just like that, before she came back to lie down at his side. He was bewildered and touched and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and tried to breathe normally, without choking.

“I was wrong,” she murmured. “I know what you are. You’re a good man. No matter what else has happened. No matter who died tonight. And I-” She lifted her head suddenly and her brows drew together, her palm against his chest. “I’m proud of you. For saving that girl. For taking a gut shot and surviving it anyway on just the smell of honeysuckle outside your window. I don’t - I don’t know anyone like you, Rick. I... don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t followed me onto that subway car.”

God, she gutted him out.

Castle cupped her face in both of his hands, kept his mouth shut, absolutely shut, because she’d get a torrent of his words right now that he just couldn’t release and still keep her.

So he rolled them over and dipped his mouth to meet hers, concentrated on spilling out his love into the stroke of his tongue and the gratefulness of his kiss.

Without sex. Just this. Just their mouths and her fingers running through his hair and his palm at her jaw to guide her deeper.


	10. Chapter 10

“Oh, shit,” she gasped. “Grab - grab him!”

The dog bounded right out of the bathtub and streaked across the tiles, disappeared between Castle’s legs in the doorway. He stared at Kate for a moment too long, and then he twisted around, the unused towel still in his hands, and he went after the damn dog.

“Hey, stop. Stop running, you bastard,” he shouted. The dog had torn down the hallway and was bounding through the living room, soapy and wet, spraying the furniture and leaving prints on the wood floor.

“He needs a name,” Beckett said, coming in behind him. She whistled sharply and the dog jerked to a halt in the kitchen, whining back at her. “Come here. Now.”

The dog growled at them but Beckett raised an eyebrow and the wolf dropped his head, went belly flat to the floor, sinking straight down. Beckett sighed and gave Castle the same look.

“Okay, okay,” he said, hustling towards the dog with the towel outstretched. The dog whined and started wriggling forward on his belly, crawling away from him.

“Stop,” Beckett said. “Right now.”

The dog huffed and rolled his eyes up to Castle, so he quickly wrapped the dog in the towel and rubbed him down. “You little punk.”

Kate came past him and nudged his back with her bare toes. Her leggings were soaked up to the knees, t-shirt appealingly clinging, and the ends of her hair were damp where the dog had splashed her. She looked cute, and sexy, and he was surprised she’d taken over the job quite so enthusiastically.

“Name your damn dog, Richard. When he’s being bad, then at least you can call him.”

“He’s always bad,” Castle muttered. “Cujo sounds appropriate.”

The dog grumbled below the towel and Castle rubbed him down, shaking him a little where he thought he could feel the collar. The tags began to jangle in time to the dog’s deep-chested growl, and Kate sank down with him, pulled the towel back.

“You’re pretty much a Cujo, aren’t you?” The wolf whined and crawled forward as if to escape Castle, and then suddenly he was bounding into Kate’s arms, wriggling and knocking her back. She caught herself on the cabinets and laughed, her eyes lifting to his with a grin.

“Cujo it is,” he said.

Kate took the towel from him and wrapped the dog like a baby, curling the massive thing in her arms and pulling him into her lap. “Hey, Cujo. You’re gonna be fine, aren’t you, baby? You’ll be a good wolf now that you’re clean.”

The dog wriggled and flipped out of her arms, slinking away from the towel and going to hide in the living room as if ashamed. Castle laughed and reached out, tugged Kate to stand with him. She turned her head, watching the dog, and when she finally looked back to him, he was ready.

He caught her chin in his fingers and angled her to him, kissing her softly, brushing his lips across her mouth until she opened for him. He kept it surface, the wet touch of her bottom lip against his and nothing more. She moaned softly, her fingers spreading across his pecs and circling to his back, holding him to her.

He was liking this, his new plan of attack when it came to Kate. Go slow, make her want him. Make her moan.

She shifted closer, her chest pressing flush to his so that he could feel her breasts through the wet cotton of her shirt. He cupped the side of her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb, grazed his mouth along her jaw. She sucked in a hard breath and arched.

“Here,” she said. “Let’s do it in here. I need you.”

He circled his hand around to the front of her leggings, dipped below the waistband to feel the heat of her. She moaned and her cheek pressed hard into his, her breath skirting his ear. Her hand gripped his bicep and urged him closer, so he inched his fingers lower, skimming her panties.

“Please, Rick,” she whispered. “Please touch me.”

He parted her sex with his fingers, that blossoming place so thick and wet, petals, honey and heavy-scented like the summer darkness at night. She moaned and rocked her hips into his touch.

“You feel so good,” he rumbled into her neck, licking the rigid line as she seemed to strain for it. “Like you want only me.”

“Only - only you,” she gasped, up on her toes. He stroked between her legs and found the pulsing round bud of her clit and she mewled, clutching at him. “Please, oh, please don’t stop, baby. I need you.”

He gripped the back of her neck and brought that pleading, desperate mouth to his, stroking his tongue inside as he slid his fingers through her sex. She was rolling her hips into it, her hands rubbing over him and then clutching, like she didn’t know what to do, like she couldn’t stand it.

“This gonna be enough?” he murmured, pausing his mouth before hers. Flicked her clit with a thumb. “Or do I need to lay you over the table and push inside you?”

She moaned and fell apart just that past. A brilliant burst of light and tremors against him, sagging so that he was forced to band his free arm around her shoulders to hold her up. She was gasping for breath, and his hand was drenched with her arousal.

“Guess not,” he grinned against her temple.

“Don’t be smug,” she said - or tried to say. She was still catching her breath.

“Love, little too late for that. Now hop up here on the counter and let me peel your leggings off. I’m still gonna push inside you.”

“Fuck, yes,” she growled.

\-----

He stroked hard inside and she cried out at his ear, her body shuddering around him. Her ankles were locked around the small of his back and she arched with his every thrust.

“You’re so perfect around me,” he husked. His mouth at her ear, sweat slicked stomachs touching. “So fucking perfect. Can’t believe you let me back inside.”

“Me either,” she said, going for sardonic but failing. She sounded desperate instead.

He kneaded her breast with one hand, twisting roughly at her nipple as she rubbed against him. Every movement had a flair at the end, every thrust a grind, every arch an undulation of her hips so that it was deep and forceful and torturous.

“Shit,” she gasped. Dragged at him.

The counter was the perfect height to pound away at her, and he knew that’s what she wanted, the punishment of it. But he kept withdrawing slowly and shoving ruthlessly back inside so that she got half of what she wanted, half what he did, and she was all the more on edge for it.

On the edge for him.

“Fuck, Richard,” she groaned.

Her thighs tensed around his waist and tried to pull him back, but he held her off, the heat between their bodies humid and rich. Anticipation was almost as electric as the fucking, and he liked holding himself back and making them both wait for it. Sensations zipped under their skins. She moaned and arched, and he rewarded her desperation with the squeeze of her breast, twisting her nipple.

Kate gasped and vibrated with it, so strong and gorgeous in his arms, and he thrust back inside her, deep and tight.

“Oh,” she groaned. “Yes, like that. Just like that. You’re so good at this.”

“Too bad, time to change it up,” he growled at her neck. “Lie down, baby.”

She opened her eyes, dazed and drugged with his agonizing rhythm, but he was already lowering her back to the cold stainless steel of her kitchen counter. As her body moved, his cock inside her changed angles, growing harder in the narrowing channel of her sex.

Her breasts pressed flat to her chest, nipples hard and dark against her pale skin. He reached back and unwrapped her legs from around his waist, cupped her behind her knees and lowered her thighs to the steel.

She shivered and jerked with the cold, her eyes dark on his, wanting and sensual.

“Give it to me,” she husked.

“Can you feel how much I want you? How very much?” He rubbed his palms up her thighs and spread her legs a little wider, positioning her how he wanted her, still buried deep. She arched into him and reached her hands down to circle his wrists.

“I can feel you,” she hummed. “So hard inside me. Give it to me.”

He shook off her grip and planted his hands beside her shoulders, lowered his mouth to her breast. She writhed under him, wrapping her arms at his lower back, trying to hold him close. He sucked on her nipple, curling his tongue around the areola, nipping with his teeth sheathed by his lips. She moaned and her hips jerked into him.

“Your breasts are gorgeous. And your taste-”

“Fuck me. Just fuck me, oh God.”

“I like to take my time appreciating.” Castle rubbed a hand down her side, teased that soft and vulnerable flesh at her inside thigh as he withdrew his cock. “Don’t you like the tease?” He could feel the wild jerk of her hips as he reached for her sex, her body seeking him, tuned to his, wanting.

“No,” she growled. “Stop teasing. Come back here and fuck me.”

“You asked for it.” He snapped his hips into her and crushed her clit between his fingers and their bodies. She shouted and worked a dirty rhythm under him, throwing herself against his cock while he sucked on her breast. She was so hot, so fucking hut under him, and her body was a wet and tight fist around him.

And then he felt her tightening, contracting deep inside, and she clawed up his back and grabbed his ears, pulled his mouth to hers. She sank her teeth into his bottom lip and growled out her orgasm, coming in waves that gripped his cock.

He stroked his hands down to her hips and thrust hard, felt the second wave of her orgasm crash over her just as his own broke him. He roared his climax and pounded into her, violent and intent, until it was over.

She curled her fingers at his neck and tugged on him, pulling and pleading without words, and even though it couldn’t be comfortable, it was her damn kitchen counter, he laid half his body over hers and wordlessly kissed her breast.

She let out a soft moan and her eyes slipped closed.

If she fell asleep, he’d have to carry her back to bed. He was not letting her sleep on the stainless steel.

\-----

When he laid her down on the bed, she hummed something and rolled onto her stomach, her bare body exposed to him. He hadn’t bothered to find their clothes and the dog had stolen Castle’s boxers - so he just wrapped them up in the cold sheets and laid close to her.

She opened her eyes and smiled. Her arm came up between them and her fingers unfurled at his lips, stroked the edges of his mouth. “Hey, baby.”

He found his own mouth curling up. “Hey.”

“Where’d you get Cujo anyway?”

He shrugged. “Someone on my crew. One of my guys - either Liam or Mikey or maybe it was Dave.”

“Dave.”

“You think?” he murmured, furrowing his brow. “No, Dave is - he was pretty intense. I don’t think Cujo would be so good-natured if he’d been with Dave. Mikey-”

She was laughing at him.

“What?”

“Baby, I don’t know Dave. I don’t know Mikey or Liam. I was just - all these names you pulled out from thin air. After last night, there’s just... something else to it.”

He didn’t have a response to that; she knew he was a spy. She knew this was his job.

She thumbed his chin. “I interrupted. Keep going. Liam or Mikey’s dog then? And where are they?”

“They’re dead.”

“Oh.”

“British wankers shot us up during a carjacking we’d set up. Cujo took off running for the woods and I followed him - just instinct.”

“Yeah, you said they bombed the car. But everyone - Liam and Mikey and everyone was inside?”

“Couple cars. Yeah. The whole crew but for a couple kids.”

“Shit. No wonder you’re laying low.”

“Yeah, it’s a big mess. My father’s pissed, but he understands. It’s like that sometimes. Dog came with me ‘cause I didn’t know what to do with him. Last of my crew, really.”

“Mikey. I bet it was Mikey’s dog. He seemed like the kind of guy who would have a dog.”

His heart softened. “Yeah, baby, he was. Laughed a lot. And his girlfriend was always busting his balls. Bet it was his dog. Cujo seems to respond well to badass women.”

She smiled at him, and her fingers trailed along his jaw and chin. It was strange having her touching him while he talked. Like she was feeling his words rather than hearing them.

“This scar is new,” she murmured. She was scratching at a line of skin just under his chin, where he’d busted it on the concrete. “What happened?”

“Got slammed into the sidewalk by the police,” he answered, giving her a crooked grin. “They yank us out of the bars routinely - rough us up just to keep the crew from getting cocky and restless. I’m supposed to be drunk, right? So I took the dive when the bloody copper shoved.”

Her thumb stroked the line under his chin, over and over. “What if you - what happens if something... happens to you?”

“I get pulled. Go under for a while. Come back later if my cover is still intact. It’s what I’ll do after this week. Head back to London, work my way to Dublin again.”

“But something like - a cop shoving your face into the sidewalk. What if you’d had a concussion? What if that carjacking - what if there’d been no dog?”

He was confused. “No dog?”

“To save your life.” She curled her hand and ran the back of her fingers up his jaw against his stubble. “No one there to save your life.”

He kissed the knobby point of her knuckle. “Don’t need a partner, love. I got it handled.”

“No, I don’t mean a partner. Last night we had each other’s backs, yeah, but I don’t usually either these days. I know what’s it like, being alone. I’m not bothered by it. But if I don’t show up to work tomorrow, they know. The 12th would come looking for me. My father - even he’d ask around. Who do you have to ask?”

It twisted his guts to think of her alone on the streets doing some damn foolish undercover op. Worse, to have her lieutenant at the 12th be the one to miss her. Before he ever would.

“Rick. What happens if you disappear? How would - you just wouldn’t come back? It’d be six months and then I’d know? A year?”

Oh, fuck. Oh, God, no.

“Baby, I - I’d never...” He’d wanted to say leave you, but a faceplant in the street from a rougher-than-usual cop, the lack of a dog at a carjacking that ended in firebombing - these were things that happened. Could happen. To him.

Or say Marrakesh happened again and he was holed up in a foreign city, dying from near-fatal stab wounds, unable to make contact even with his father for five months. And she’d never know.

“A call,” he blurted out. His voice was rough, choked in his throat. “I can call you. And you’d know. I’d know, too, right? That you’re still here.”

She looked entirely uncomfortable with the whole thing and he realized she hadn’t meant to ask him for accountability. But he wanted to give it.

“I’d have Eastman tell you,” he said quickly. “He knows about you. He’s - heh, he’s rooting for you, actually.”

“Eastman.”

He’d never told her about Eastman. “My handler. Kinda like - well, he’s my tech support back in the states. When I’m on the ground, he feeds me information and money and weapons, he fills in the holes in my cover IDs, he keeps me alive. His wife lives close by, actually.”

“His wife?”

“Yeah. They have a farmhouse out... I don’t know exactly. He won’t take me. But I’ve met Carrie and Mark for drinks and dinner a few times in the city here. And sometimes Mark comes to me, drops me stuff I need, gives me updates.”

“Where’s Mark - Eastman. Where’s Eastman now?”

“Back in Dublin. He’s working out of the embassy for this gig.”

“And his wife is where?”

“Nearby, like I said.”

“Him there. Her here.”

“Yeah.”

Kate curled her fingers into a fist and regarded him thoughtfully, but she didn’t ask anything more.

So, he kept going. “I’d have Eastman come find you, Kate. So you’d know. Make him abduct you off the side of the road and bring you to my hospital bedside. Nurse me back to health.”

She laughed then, rolling her eyes at him. “You wish.”

He wriggled closer, glad he’d made her smile. “I do wish. Fervently. Get it? Like a fever. Maybe you should sponge bathe me.”

“Maybe I should shove a thermometer up your ass and check your temperature,” she muttered.

He grinned. “Ooh, really, Beckett? Kinky. You know what I like.”

And then she laughed again and and shifted onto her side, drew him closer with the bare expanse of her breasts. “Come on then. I don’t think we’re actually getting out of this bed today. So let’s see how kinky you like it.”

“Fuck, yes, please. Let’s do that.”

\-----

“This isn’t exactly kinky,” she murmured from the pillow. Castle perched over her on his elbows, running his fingers slowly along her breasts, tracing veins to her nipples. “Hmm.”

“But it’s nice,” he said softly, grinning at her. “Don’t you think?”

“Eh. Little tame.”

He laughed and flicked her nipple, making her chest rise as if seeking him. “Little tame, huh?”

“I wanna do stuff.”

If possible, his cock hardened even more, pressed into the tight space of her thighs below him. She shifted her legs in response and her hands skimmed his shoulders. Castle didn’t mind doing stuff, not one bit, and he lowered his mouth to the perfect rise of her breast, sucking her nipple into his mouth, flicking his tongue across the nub.

She groaned and gripped his shoulders, pushing herself up into him. “I wanna do stuff to you,” she clarified. Her fingers stroked at his neck and into his hair, tightening and angling his head up. He glanced at her. “Stuff to you, baby.”

“To me, huh?”

“You ever do anything?” Kate squirmed under him and got her knee up, hugging his flank. He felt the warm wetness between her legs right at his belly and he reached back to grip her thigh, ready right now to drive into her.

“Do anything,” he echoed, his eyes on the pink flush to her breasts. His cock pulsed for her.

“Come on, Rick. Pay attention.”

“Oh, I am,” he growled. He lowered his head to her breasts and rubbed the stubble of his cheeks against her skin.

“Whoa, fuck,” she gasped.

“You wanna do stuff to me.”

She gripped his head with her hands and lifted him up, her eyes burning on his. “You know when - when I handcuffed you and the scarf over your eyes and you...”

“I fucking blacked out is what I did,” he laughed.

She let out a long breath and cupped his face. “Yeah.”

“You wanna do that to me again?”

“Well, I wanna see your face,” she said, biting her bottom lip.

“And I wanna touch you,” he added. Needed to touch her. Always. “Or at least. Be able to touch you.”

“Yeah.” She capitulated easily, her fingers running through his hair and caressing his ears. “Um. Can I do that?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Do what exactly?”

“You’re a bastard.”

He laughed at her. “Baby, all you’ve said is that you wanna make me come so hard that I black out - which is definitely on the table, oh yes - and that you won’t cuff me. So what are we doing?”

She sighed and slid her other knee up, squeezed his hips with her thighs. He really, fuck, he really wanted to push inside her.

Her hips rolled under him and she gripped his shoulders. “Could we - let’s just do this,” she gasped. “Figure it out after.”

“Oh, fucking hell, yes. I really gotta shove inside you, Beckett.”

She moaned and widened her thighs, and he felt the thick wetness between her legs, ready for him, more than ready. “Come on, baby. Let’s go.”

He skimmed his hand down her side and to her thigh, squeezing. She shifted and suddenly his cock was right there, throbbing hotly for her, and she growled at him to get on with it.

Castle coasted his hand inside to her sex, rubbed her with two fingers, stroking and sliding through those wet folds. She mewled and writhed under him, her arm around his neck. She panted at his cheek, rubbing herself against him.

“Need you,” she groaned. “Need you inside me.”

“Yeah,” he grunted. His cock was aching for her, that deliberate anticipation building up in his balls and tightening his groin. “I got you.”

She widened her thighs and he sank into her, just that first inch, hot and tight and resistant. She moaned and arched, seeking him, her hands gripping his sides, his hips, working him closer.

Castle lowered his head to take her mouth, pushing his cock into her as he thrust forward. She moaned around his tongue, dirty words spilling out into him, and his cock was sheathed in the warm fist of her sex.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, it’s always so good,” she groaned.

“Yeah,” he panted. “Yeah, love, like this.”

“Need you to move.”

“I wanna stay right here-”

“Come on,” she grunted. “Fuck me hard.”

“Thought you were gonna do stuff to me,” he grinned. He had control like this, buried deep inside her with her muscles contracting desperately around him. “Thought you wanted-”

She growled and gripped his ass, bucked hard into him. He sank impossibly deeper and groaned, dropping his head to hers. She laughed breathlessly, something triumphant in it, and her hands kneaded the muscles of his ass.

“Whoa,” he grunted, pitching sharply into her.

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, what?”

“Maybe I’ll do stuff to you anyway. Make you take me.”

“Like to see you try.”

She growled under him, like a fucking tiger, and he laughed.

Until she gripped his ass and ran the tips of her fingers between his cheeks. He grunted and collapsed onto her, arms going weak, and she hummed in pleasure, the vibrations shivering through him.

“What do you think you’re-”

He cut off with a grunt, her fingers caressing his anus, spreading his cheeks. His heart rate jacked up, fluttering in his throat, and then he felt her inside muscles contracting forcefully around his cock.

“Shit,” he gasped.

“Thought so,” she whispered. “You always talk so much, baby. I knew you wanted it.”

“Want - want you,” he grunted.

She pressed the cheeks of his ass together, kneading, and then separated them again, exposing his anus to the cool air. And then her fingers tapped at his ass, nudging at the tight muscle.

“Kate.” His jaw ached; he was gritting his teeth, eyes closed, face buried into the side of her neck.

“You know what I need?” she murmured at his ear. Her lips burned along his cheek. “I need to get my fingers wet. So they slide. Don’t you think?”

“W-wet,” he moaned. Fuck, she just - she just kept talking, that breathless, throaty voice at his ear. He felt her fingers dance along his flanks and then her hand between them, the hard knobs of her knuckles against his abs. “Oh, God, Kate.”

“Yeah, love. Shift a little so I can touch myself.”

He moaned and she was already moving, pushing them on their sides and hooking her leg around his to keep them there. His cock pulsed inside her and she arched her hips into him, her fingers cupping his balls.

“Fuck. Kate.”

“Yeah, baby,” she hummed. “Let me get my fingers wet so that I can slide inside you too.”

“Fuck,” he gasped. “Fuck. I - I need to thrust.”

“No,” she said. “Not yet. You said you could stay like this forever, deep inside me.” She nipped his ear and licked under his jaw. “Remember? High and tight and deep inside me.”

“Fuck.”

“I want inside you too,” she growled.

“I’m gonna come before I even get a chance to-”

“Hush.” Her hand between them trailed lightly at his hip and he felt the wetness, the strangely cool warmth of her arousal on her own fingers as she moved her hand to his ass. She had her other arm under his neck, but she reached down and squeezed his glute, her teeth catching his collarbone.

“Kate,” he said. “Kate, I need to-”

“Stay still. You’re gonna like this.”

Her fingers slicked around his anus and he moaned, head dropping to the mattress, eyes tightly closed. His cock was hard as a rock inside her, agony pulsing up from the root, radiating through his body. Somehow her fingers at his ass, rubbing over his hole, had set up a connection to his cock, a tense rope of arousal that tightened in his guts.

Her middle finger pushed at his ass, nudging the muscled ring of his anus. He was breathing hard, darkness and heat and piercing, throbbing intensity making his groin furious.

“Open your eyes,” she whispered at his ear. “Open your eyes and touch me. You said you needed to.”

His eyes groaned open, caught by the way the afternoon light spilled in the window, caught by the corona of sun around her hair, the heat of her body against his, the fist of her cunt trapping his cock.

She pushed her finger into his ass and he shouted, everything coiling tight in him.

“You okay?” she murmured. “You gotta relax, sweetheart.” She rotated her finger and he groaned, panting at her neck, his lashes fluttering against her skin, trying to keep himself together. “Hey, love, hey. Relax.”

“You’re - you - can’t relax. Gotta. Move.”

“You can move,” she murmured. “Slowly.”

He groaned and jerked his hips into her, his cock seating hard. She let out a strangled breath and her finger curled, making him moan. His erection was so fierce he bit down on his tongue to keep it under control, and then she was moving her finger in his ass.

“Oh, fuck me, Kate.”

“Yeah, exactly that.”

“Shit.”

She pushed her finger deeper and he stiffened, felt it deep in his guts, felt it hard and raw, and she paused with him, both of them breathing hard.

“You o-”

“I’m fucking dying, Beckett; stop asking me if I’m okay and just - shit - just fuck me. Fuck me or - fuck, I don’t know. But that feels really fucking, fucking good.”

She hummed and he wrapped his arm tighter around her, baring his teeth at her neck. She nudged into his hips so that his cock pulsed inside her cunt, and then she worked her finger out and back in again.

“Whoa, fuck.”

She hummed and her finger swirled in his ass, shallow but raw, a fullness that echoed the thick and throbbing length of his cock. He thrust weakly into her, his concentration split between the coiled ache of his cock and the exposed, raw nerve of the shallow penetration of his ass.

“You like it?” she whispered. “I can feel how rigid you are, makes you thick inside me.”

“Fu-uck,” he croaked.

“Your ass is warm,” she murmured. “Is that how you feel inside me? Circled and gripped.”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Yeah, love.” She gripped his ass cheek and pushed her finger deeper. He whined and drew up his knee, thrust hard into her cunt, needing stimulation, movement, friction. She moaned and her head fell to his neck, her hair burying him in the soft scent of honey.

“Kate, Kate, I need - need you to move. I can’t-”

“Both ways? Fuck myself against you and fuck you as well?”

He moaned, eyes slamming shut, his mouth landing at her jaw. He sucked hard at her skin, hips rocking restlessly, and she took up his rhythm. Their bodies met, hot and close, her grip around his cock echoing the grip of his ass around the intrusion of her finger.

Suddenly she was curling two fingers up into the narrow channel of his ass, and his cock jerked in response, a hard arrow piercing the heat of her sex. She grunted and her fingers clutched at him even as her cunt did, a flash of intense need that ripped him inside out.

“Kate.”

“I’m gonna come,” she mewled. “I can’t stop.”

He growled and tightened his arm around her back, thrusting as much as he could, and she whined, her cunt beginning to contract around him. “Yeah, love, come on.”

“With you, with you,” she moaned, already falling apart in a desperate kind of way. She moaned and scissored her fingers inside his ass, then tugged at the narrowed ring of muscle.

He exploded.

His orgasm detonated in his guts and burst out through his cock, the ache in his ass like a fist even as she kept thrusting, those two working fingers and her cunt sliding and gripping him, and his come pulsing wave after wave inside her.

And even when he was done, even when his cock was limp and shivering and his body was heavy over hers, she swirled her fingers around and around in his ass and he was moaning, he sounded unhinged, he couldn’t stop. His hips thrust and jerked in response, a spiraling and tightening need.

“Oh, please,” she moaned under him, her body working against his, their skin rubbing and sliding slickly. “Please, please-”

“Kate,” he groaned. “Kate. Kate, you gotta s-stop, can’t do - can’t - fuck, I’m-”

He roared and his cock flared hard and rigid and immediately a second orgasm rushed over him, his hips jerking and shoving himself deeper, rutting into her body as it fell over him, took him, blinding and impossible and severe.


	11. Chapter 11

When he could open his eyes, when he could breathe in and out without it catching somewhere in his lungs, he shifted off of her.

He fell onto his back and laid there, staring at the ceiling until she hovered over him, a dark angel.

“Yeah?” she asked, her fingers rubbing over his collarbones.

“Yeah,” he croaked. He didn’t know what he was answering, but it was true no matter the question.

Kate leaned in and kissed him. “Stay. Be right back.”

Yeah, he couldn’t move if he tried. She slid out of bed by climbing over him, wriggling her ass in his face, but he seriously had no ability to go after her. None.

He could hear her in the bathroom washing her hands and then she was back, sliding into bed with him, sliding right over him to straddle his hips. She was sitting up on his chest, her breasts appealingly swollen, her eyes on him. He managed to grip her thighs to keep her there. She studied him and he had nothing in him left to mask his face - or his feelings.

“You liked that a lot,” she murmured, leaning in. Her hair brushed him and then her breasts were pressed to his torso. He kneaded her thighs and stared back at her, but he had no words.

She smiled down at him, pleased with herself, propped up on her elbows and rubbing herself against his stomach.

“Did you get off?” he grunted. “Second time. Did you-”

“Yeah. So hard, baby. But you came back to back. Didn’t you?”

“Fuck,” he sighed. “Never done that before.”

“I’m not sure that it’s really possible,” she chuckled. “But I feel pretty fucking good for making it happen.”

“Yeah, fuck. You - I just - really didn’t see that coming.”

“What? My fingers or the back-to-back?”

“Yeah, yeah, that.”

She hummed and wriggled her hips over him and he could feel her thick, wet sex painting his stomach with the last of her arousal. And probably his come. It was fucking erotic. Had that whole - encounter - not just happened five minutes ago, he’d be hard for her again. He couldn’t get hard if his life depended on it.

“Need some help or are you just having fun?” he muttered, wrapping his arms around her, trying to draw her in.

She laughed and shook her head, allowing herself to be pulled down. “Having fun, baby. I came three times; I’m good.”

“Three?” he said, lifting his head to look at her, ducked under his chin with her cheek pressed to his chest. “Three.” He skimmed his hand down to her ass and between her legs, slicking through the mixture of them.

“Mmm, yeah. Good. Really good. Kinda raw now.”

He moved his hand up her back, trailing come along her spine and to her shoulder blade before pushing his fingers into his mouth. She tilted her head and watched him, those dark and impossible eyes.

He licked around his fingers and then he kissed her with it, sucking on her tongue, tasting her, himself, tasting the erotic pleasure of having had her. Kate moaned softly, her fingers rubbing his nipples, her thighs spread over his hips, her body so pliant and strong, deceptively soft.

He threaded his fingers through her hair and gripped her ass with his other hand, rocking her into him. No sex, no penetration right now, but there was something hot and perfect about making out with her, petting and touching.

She flared her palm over his chest and scratched her nails down his ribs. Her mouth left his and traveled down his neck, his sternum, sucking his skin before biting at him.

He grunted and palmed her ass, kneading the firm muscle, squeezing. She hummed as she kept moving, going down his body, her mouth wet and thorough. His cock was still soft, but she closed her mouth over him, sucking him, her tongue curling and her hands on his hips.

She didn’t seem to mind he was soft; she seemed to enjoy knowing it led nowhere.

Shit. She felt so good. It just felt so good, her mouth around him. She rubbed her palms over his thighs and cradled his cock in her curled tongue, sliding him from her mouth, clean and wet and shiny.

“I love how good we are,” he murmured, made half-senseless by her mouth. “Love the feel of you around me. Everything you want to do to me.”

“I can do a lot to you,” she said. He watched her on her hands and knees over his body, the sway of her breasts as they hung, alluring and ripe. “You could roll over on your stomach and I could touch you there again. Go - higher.”

“My ass?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes were so dark, such dark depths, like the whole of the universe was being born inside those pupils.

“Save it?” he asked. “Later, when I can get it up. Full experience.”

“Yeah, we can save it.” She smiled at him, something so trusting in her face that his heart beat too hard, thundering in response to that gorgeous anticipation. “I’d like to see what else we can do, what we can make you feel. Damn, sweetheart, how hard you got, how out of control.” She spread her knees a little and her hips gave a little rock, like she was humping the air.

His throat tightened, wanting her in a way that wasn’t in his body. His body had nothing left. And yet he wanted her. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt like this before. “Come here. I want to put my hand between your legs and pet you.”

Kate crawled up and laid beside him, her breasts exposed, her thighs falling open and inviting him. He rolled over to lay along her side, stroked his hand down her chest to her cunt and slipped past her folds.

“Oh,” she groaned. “Oh, yes. I could - could come again if you let me.”

Something about the way she said it, the words or the abandon on her face, her eyes at half mast and her body rolling under him made him desperate. Desperate for her. He couldn’t get hard, but he could get her off, and so he lowered his mouth to her breast to keep from declaring his devotion, his adoration, his love.

She gasped when his lips closed around her nipple, and her hips arched into the touch of his fingers. He stroked and fingered her, he explored her folds and circled the pulsing heat of her clit even as he sucked on her breast. He wanted to feast on her, wanted to build it in her touch by touch, and so he dragged his teeth over her breast and down to her belly, buried his face between her legs.

It took longer this time, it required more to get her, almost like he had to surprise her with it. The humid call of her body pulled at him; he suckled the arousal from her sex and stroked his tongue inside her cunt, mimicked the rhythm they usually had together.

Her hands clutched and pulled, tugged and pressed. She writhed in one endless movement, the heels of her feet digging into the small of his back. She was wild and uncontained; she was being pushed over the edge.

Castle rubbed his palms up to her breasts and kneaded the tender places where he’d marked her with his mouth, and she started to keen, crying out to him.

Her body curved hard. Her gasp echoed in the room. And then she came, thick and lovely against his mouth.

He caught her hips in his arms, cradled her back to the bed. She was gasping and sweat-slicked, fumbling to get her arms around him, half-calling his name as he laid her down.

“Stay,” she cried, her body already boneless. “Don’t go. Don’t. Just stay.” Her eyes were slipping shut even as she said it, but he could feel her heart racing in her whole body, her pulse bumping at every vulnerable point.

“I’m here. I’m here. Staying right here with you.” He laid down over her, an arm around her torso, one of her legs caught over his drawn up knee so that her arousal trickled out and stained his thigh. “Right here,” he murmured softly, kissing her cheekbone. “Staying here.”

She fell asleep and he tugged the covers over them, his own heart a little shaky in his chest.

\-----

He woke when the dog jumped onto the bed with them, but he was too content to move, too happy where he was to shove Cujo off. The wolf nudged Castle’s elbow as if just checking, and then he lowered himself down to the mattress behind Castle’s back, penning him in.

After a moment of stiff watchfulness, Castle relaxed again, breathing once more, strangely sandwiched between Kate and the dog, their warmth on either side. He curled in closer to Kate and she sighed, a deep sound drawn out of sleep, but he was awake now.

He was going to have to find a way.

It was all he could think about now. He needed to be here; he needed to be here longer than an hour. When he’d walked back into the apartment looking for his phone and found her eyes red-rimmed, he’d been too horrified, too shocked to do the right thing.

But what could he have done? He’d been heading out for his job. He was a spy and she’d known that. Those first few times, they’d talked whenever he could get away, when the time zones and his legend wouldn’t interfere, when his cover couldn’t be blown, and he had thought she got it. That day he’d forgotten his phone, she had been the one to kick him right out like it was nothing.

But she’d been crying.

Fuck, he never wanted to find her crying again. He’d been miserable over it. And then to hear from her own mouth about Royce, what that fucker had done - fuck - fuck, he was furious. He wanted to rip the man’s dick off and shove it down his throat, see how he liked it.

He was trembling with it, and the dog whined at his back as if to say stop shaking the bed. Castle took a breath, then another, pressed his forehead into the back of Kate’s neck to keep it together.

She smelled like milk and honey.

He’d thought, six months ago when he’d first met her, that she was vodka and cherries, but he’d been wrong. She was rich and deep and better than that first swallow that had burned; she was sustenance to him. Filling and rich and he couldn’t get her out of his system.

He was going to have to figure out a way to get back here. To stay longer. Two days, three, a long weekend with her had to happen with more frequency during his deep covers. And then a month or more at a time, during training stints in the States, surely. He couldn’t survive another six months of dropping in when he got too desperate and needy to function without a hit of her.

Fuck, his father was going to lose it if Castle abandoned the mission.

But if Ireland kept blowing up in his face, then he wouldn’t have to-

If Ireland kept blowing up in his face?

Castle rolled to his back, stared up at the ceiling. Foley was out there, plotting, up to no fucking good, stomping on the necks of already-broken people. Could Castle really put in anything less than his all?

Fuck, the idea grated. Not doing his job, skimping on the mission. Just the thought of not closing down Foley’s ring and bringing that fucking, greedy asshole to his knees made Castle ache, like his chest had been split open with an axe.

And yet he had come back with the damn dog not even knowing if Kate would let him in the door, a much more terrible ache. That - her grief over their situation, his not knowing what he might be coming back to - that had been a split down to his soul, a wound left gaping.

He couldn’t sabotage the mission. He couldn’t. Fuck. He was too well-trained, damn it, and he had a fucking score to settle with Foley. He wanted to slit that bastard’s throat with a dull knife - for the boy, for the fuck-up that was Colleen, for the whole damn wasted mission.

But when he was in Ireland and the sky might be grey and the rain steady, if his feet were cold and soaking wet, when he would nurse his fifth Guinness and sit alone at the pub waiting on the crew before they could crack some skulls and ride out against the British wankers, when he would find himself alone and cold and his cock mourning for her and she wouldn’t answer his calls, he’d hate himself for the mission.

Damn, he wanted her so badly.

Right now, right now, he wanted to claim her again, force himself inside her so that the fierce grip of her cunt around him would be burned into his memory. And he’d be burned in hers.

But the fucking dog was in bed with them and they’d had more rounds in the last twelve hours than they’d had their first weekend together and shouldn’t he be more considerate?

He was going to find a way to make this work. He was going to figure out a fucking way to be here more often, or to get her back on the damn phone, a video call, something.

Castle was too restless now to sleep, to stay trapped in the bed between the dog and her body, taunted by the smell of her skin.

He rolled onto his side and the wolf opened an eye, glancing at him. Castle slid over the dog and then knelt beside the bed, shoved the dog towards Kate to keep her warm. Cujo growled softly and licked his teeth, but he settled in at Kate’s back.

“Stay,” Castle whispered. “I’m gonna make lunch. Make you something too if you’re good.”

Cujo gave a low woof, more rumble in his chest than anything, and Castle reached out, found himself petting the wolf between his ears.

“Yeah. We’ll take care of her, between you and me, won’t we?”

\-----

His heart was already in fucking shreds when he opened the cabinet door, searching for a way to make it up to her.

He was opening up the overhead cabinet where she usually kept odds and ends of meal helpers - packets to spice taco meat or flavorings for hamburger, something he could do - when he found them.

Index cards.

His chest was numb, his eyes scratchy, his lungs tight with all of it - the things he couldn’t give her and the ways he was going to inevitably let her down, how he’d already failed her - and so when he opened the cabinet and saw the flurry of index cards ruffling in the breeze he’d made, he almost thought - stupidly - oh, recipes.

Recipes. Fuck. No, they were not.

Beckett did not do recipes.

He yanked the bright yellow index card from the bottom and read her thin, firm print: Ligature marks. Yale Cordage Performance Ropes of Maine. Arborist rope - double esterlon, blue cord, speciality.

Was this some case? He folded the tape over the top of the yellow card, then flipped the card over on a hunch. The long, run-on sentence on the back in a shaky scrawl made his stomach turn inside out.

He bought it specially for her, for this job, he bought the rope and he thought of her neck and when she ran, when she fought him off, he was so pissed that she’d ruined his perfect tableau, so angry with her that he actually forgot, for a moment, about the gun, and he went after her, he chased her down, roaring and snagging her by the hair as she tried to crawl away, and then he remembered, it came back to him, the job, and he was calm again, he got himself together, and he pulled out the gun.

Holy fuck. Kate. Oh, God, baby, what are you doing?

He dropped the index card, stared down at her unmistakeable script on the bright yellow, his heart racing and his palms damp.

Her mother’s murder. Tacked up on index cards on the inside of a cabinet door. Both doors. How many cabinet doors had index cards of her mother’s death?

Castle started opening the cabinet doors, one after another, and he found a total of thirty-six cards, multi-colored, taped to the wood on the inside as if every morning as she made her coffee or rooted around for breakfast, she went over the details one after another. Little reminders, thoughts jotted down and tacked up like inspirational quotes.

And this was just in the kitchen. Where else, how many others, the case parsed and diagramed and pared out over her entire apartment?

It hadn’t been like this the last time he was here.

Of course, the last time he’d been here was the day he’d been walking out and leaving her to cry alone.

Castle turned slowly in the kitchen and stared at the myriad index cards, the details of her mother’s gruesome murder spread across his vision, and he knew.

He knew.

He’d triggered this.

\-----

With those index cards burned inside him, seared into his vulnerable guts like a brand, Castle worked at doing something to help, to undercut the raw grief that seemed to leak from all those fluttering, colorful notes.

But what could he do? He could fuck her, but they’d done that, and too many times would only make her sore, and what fucking good was he at all when he would be leaving?

Castle took a steadying breath, scraped a hand down his face.

He could make lunch; he could make a meal.

He sat down at her computer, connected the network he'd devised for secure wireless access using tricks he'd picked up along the way. Watched it boot up as if in a trance, trying to calm himself. When it came on, he scoured the internet not for satellite recon or black ops intel, but for a meal he could actually make successfully.

He had realized after a time with her that the more simple concoctions - add a can of soup, mix in water - held no challenge and therefore his mind wandered and he ruined it. But the recipes with startling ingredients he'd never heard of actually snagged his attention, made his brain buzz like it was an interesting side job in a mission.

He'd have to go to the grocery store for the spices and the orange peel (that was a thing, orange peel, that a person actually had to buy ), and even though he didn't want to leave - fuck, that was the last thing he wanted right now - he made himself act like a normal person for once.

Go to the grocery store, asshole.

Of course, Castle stood beside the bed while she slept and visually punished himself for the leaving - for always leaving, for having to leave, for leaving being necessary - by cataloging every line of her body with his eyes. He traced the slope of her nose and how it was mirrored in the slope of her neck; he watched the rise and fall of her breasts below the sheet and the tease of that shadowed valley between them.

She was lying on her side close to the edge of the bed and her body was washed with the faint yellow of mid-morning. Her hair was one smooth pelt that he longed to touch, but he kept his hands to himself when Cujo growled.

Castle was close enough to smell the sex. No. Not just sex, but their love - their love; he wasn't going to pretend it was anything else and he was going to claim it, he claimed it, it was there and glowing like the sunlight.

And then he sank down to the floor and sat with his back against the mattress and propped the little index card on his knees and wrote.

I'm getting groceries - I'm starving and you have nothing, as usual. Don't move from the bed because I have plans for you. Dirty plans, in case that's not clear.

He was proud that his note captured a tone of flippancy and demanding desire that he sure as fuck didn't feel right now, and he even signed it hastily, hurrying to keep his hand from making a heart or x's and o's like an ass. He propped the note up over her phone, the index card folded to stand alone, and then he snatched it back again and wrote her name on it, taking care over the letters.

His heart was a malformed struggling thing in his chest. A hawk with only one wing, unable to rise from the earth with the squirrel limp in his talons. He was afraid he was either going to have to be grounded, or he was going to have to let the squirrel go.

He didn't like either choice.

Grow a new fucking wing, you mangy hawk.

Castle stood up and left the card in the line of her sight, and then he left. He fucking left the apartment with the dog curled up at her back and keeping her warm in his place.


	12. Chapter 12

She had never woken up. He returned with food and ingredients and determination and his heart in his throat, but she was still in bed asleep. The dog was awake though, standing just inside the doorway of her bedroom with watchful, untrusting eyes, and Castle put everything down on the counter and came to it there at the threshold.

Kate was in the exact spot he’d left her.

Castle knelt down with the dog and rubbed his ears, murmuring under his breath. “Good job. You did good, Cujo. Stay here with Kate.”

The wolf turned his body without moving his head, bringing his flanks into Castle’s side and orienting back towards the bed. Castle chuckled softly and scratched behind the dog’s ears, down around his neck, rubbing and smoothing both the soft and wild fur.

“Good dog,” he said quietly. “Wouldn’t want anyone else here with her. You did good. Go lie down, Cujo. Go lie down.”

The wolf shook off the dog of himself, a bristling shiver that Castle could actually see, and he loped back to the bed in two strides. He was up and hovering over Kate’s body, a gleam of the moon in his eye, and then he lowered himself down next to her, curling spine to spine like a pack mate.

Castle plucked the card from the bedside table and tossed it into the trash can - she could find it and know he’d thought of her - and then he stood for a moment longer.

Then he moved back for the kitchen and what he could do - here and now - to be present. Even if it wasn’t enough.

\-----

He vacillated between wanting to be there when she woke up and wanting to finish this and have it complete when she walked in on him. He was still putting the last touches on the raspberry glaze when she came through the hallway and into the living room, her face touched with surprise.

She slowly pulled her hair back off her face, wrapping a rubber band around everything as she surveyed the kitchen. “What’s - uh - going on?”

“I’m making something,” he said, and the smile flashed across his face without him even knowing it was coming. He was squirming on the spot, anxious to have her approval. “Not like the omelette. This is a real thing.”

“A real thing?” she chuckled, taking another step forward. She was dressed now, a hint of eyeliner and mascara that made the dark shadows seem artful rather than a consequence of how little she’d slept. “What’re you making?”

“Pork tenderloin. It’s quite complicated.” He grinned and carefully poured the glaze over the meat in the pan, paying strict attention to the thickness and distribution. “It’s like a mission.”

“Mission: Pork Tenderloin?” she laughed. She was okay now, it seemed, and heading for his side in the kitchen, all of that hesitant misfortune gone. “Your feast woke me.”

Castle slid the pan into the oven and set the timer; suddenly he could smell what had woken her, the rich raspberry sauce, the zest of citrus peel, the meat cooking. “It’ll be ready in about twenty more minutes,” he said, laying down the oven mitt. He looped his arms around her waist and tugged her into his hips, humming when she came easily.

“You get hard cooking?” she murmured, teasing him.

“No comment,” he said, grinning to keep the truth from the statement. She probably wouldn’t want to hear that he got hard thinking about cooking for her, about how she’d taste the want that went into it, how she’d maybe make those little noises if it was good enough.

Kate chuckled and stepped into his embrace, slid her hand under his t-shirt and skimmed his belly button.

“Twenty minutes?”

“Not enough time, Beckett.”

“Surely you can,” she scoffed. “The way you feel right now? I bet I could have you coming before you could get your hand in my pants to return the favor.”

He growled and claimed her dirty mouth for a kiss, hoping to distract her. He wanted her, of course he did, but he thought there was a good chance she’d been so slow walking in here because she was sore, and he also didn’t want to fucking come in his pants in her kitchen and miss the timer going off.

She didn’t push it too far. She fiddled at his stomach, fingers caressing and nudging at his pants, but he was able to concentrate on stroking his tongue inside her mouth, taking groans from her. After a moment, she gave up teasing and pressed her palms to his bare back under the shirt, bringing their bodies flush, her kinetic sexual energy burning bright just under their skins.

He broke from her mouth and breathed fast against her cheek, palmed the back of her head to nuzzle in against her, kisses that were more like fumbles of his lips. She was humming and caressing his spine with her fingers, hips rolling softly against him, pleasure fizzling up and dissolving again.

“I love how you make me feel,” she murmured at his jaw, her teeth scraping his stubble. “Love this, how good this is. And you cook.”

He laughed, though his guts felt hooked and yanked out of him at her words - how close it was, how she must not know what she was saying, how twisting her up with arousal made her conversely loose with her tongue. She strung together words without checking them first, and when he squinted his eyes and fuzzed over the pronouns, he could swear she was saying she loved him too.

She was. She was saying it even without the words.

He wasn’t sure how to handle that.

“Jury’s still out on whether or not the food is actually edible,” he said, nudging her hips away from him and turning back to the rest of the meal. “We have mashed red potatoes too - though the recipe called them smashed. I don’t know the difference, except if maybe it’s because I’m supposed to leave them chunky.”

When he glanced back at her, Kate looked so very amused. And laced through that amusement was a tenderness that made him rejoice.

He’d done something right for her. More than just sex. He’d gotten it right.

“Sure,” she said slowly. “I bet that’s it. Chunky.” Kate came to him at the stove and pressed her body into his side, her arm sliding around his waist. She laid her cheek against his back for a moment, and then she settled her chin on top of his shoulder and watched him carefully ‘smash’ the potatoes.

“Like this, you think?” he murmured, breathing in carefully so he wouldn’t dislodge her.

“You’re doing just fine,” she hummed at his ear. Her other hand came up at his sternum with her fingers splayed, as if she were holding him back from some edge he couldn’t see, keeping him with her on this side of things.

The domestic side? The stable side? The here and now side.

Castle released the pot to press his hand over hers, smashing the potatoes carefully so he wouldn’t ruin it now, at the end of things, when he was so close to getting it right.

\-----

Dinner wound up formal.

The dog laid in the middle of the hallway like he was trying to trip Castle up while they went back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom, getting ready. He didn't know why they were dressing up, who had started it, but he was shaving shirtless at the bathroom sink while Kate spread her father's borrowed dress shirt out on a hanger and left it over the shower curtain rod.

He saw the flash of her in the mirror, skin and lace, dressed only in that teddy he had bought for her at Victoria's Secret the first week they'd met. When he turned his head to get a better look, she was already disappearing back down the hallway and he was afraid of cutting himself with her razor.

It didn't work so hot on his face and the guard on the blades made it difficult to get a close shave. He was trying though. He pulled on the skin of his throat and scraped the blade up to his chin and he saw Kate in the mirror again, still in just the teddy.

"Hey, are you using my razor?"

He swallowed. Was this a thing? Too much? "Uh. Yeah. Mine didn't make it back with me. I don't know what happened to it."

"It's pretty dull, Castle. I've got spares in the linen closet - I was about to switch. Hang on." She moved into the bathroom and opened the little closet door; the scent of painted wood and vicks came out at him, reminding him of that week she'd been sick. She ripped open a new package of disposable razors and handed one over. "Here. Try this. It should work better."

He switched with her and she chucked the old razor into the trash can, her eyes studying him and then switching to the mirror, watching him shave. His skin danced with electricity, her body near his and her fingers at his spine as a kind of guide, or maybe as a touchstone. He didn't know how he was possibly supposed to shave in a straight line with her so close, watching him.

He raised his chin and started at the base of his throat and for some reason her fingers skimmed up his spine. As if in sympathy. As if she couldn't help but direct his movements.

If dinner wasn't waiting on them, he'd do something about that.

She gave a soft little sigh, maybe she was thinking the same thing, and she scratched her nails at the base of his spine. "I'm almost ready. Just have to pull on my dress. Oh, and earrings. Almost forgot."

She disappeared again, and the bathroom snapped into focus, the razor at his throat.

Sharing a razor hadn't been a thing at all. She'd just wanted him to use a better one, she'd been fine with him appropriating her stuff.

He grinned into the mirror, had to pause shaving because of it, unable to wipe the stupid smile off his face.

She loved him. She did. He knew it.

\-----

She was wearing a little black dress that stopped just above her knee - high enough to be alluring, low enough to be classy. The deep vee laid across her chest and tantalized him with the shadow of her cleavage, and she'd pulled on impossibly high heels that set her at his height.

He knew she was wearing the skimpy, curve-hugging lace teddy beneath that dress too, and it did something to him.

He was wearing her father's shirt, the rich color something he could actually imagine Jim Beckett wearing to a formal dinner party with his coworkers, schmoozing the mayor and the DA and all of them. Castle had rolled up the sleeves because they were, of course, too short, and he'd had to unbutton the top couple buttons as well to keep from straining the shoulders like he had at the bar.

It was another indication that her father was sadly a changed man, thinner than his former self. The shirt felt crisp, as if it was brand new, and he bet that Jim hadn't worn it - it wouldn't fit him now.

The charcoal pants completed the ensemble and Kate met him as he came out of the bedroom, the dog padding in right behind her and jumping up to claim the bed. Kate reached for Rick and he embraced her softly, the scent of her perfume and the powder of her make-up in the air between them. She kissed his cheek and hummed.

"Smooth," she murmured. "But not too smooth."

"I miss a spot?" he rumbled.

"Just enough spots to make it good," she said. Her teeth came out and she nipped the edge of his jaw, made his cock jump in response. "You ready?"

"I'm ready," he answered. "Spin around for me."

She smiled slowly and stepped away, turning her back to him and looking at him over her shoulder before making a complete circle. He grinned in appreciation and whistled softly, saw the blush that stole up her neck and painted it rose.

"You look beautiful," he said, dropping the grin to be serious once more. He cupped the side of her face and stroked the hair back behind her ear, short tendrils that curled softly.

He was taking her out on a date, he realized. In her own kitchen. A date.

They walked hand in hand down the hallway, the dog following behind them. Castle’s feet were bare on the floorboards despite the dress clothes. He pulled her chair out at the dining room table and brushed the hair off her neck to press his lips to that fluttering pulse. She lifted her hand and stroked the side of his face, a hum in her throat that made him restless and content at the same time.

He sat down at the corner, their knees brushing under the table, and they served themselves from the dishes. They were beautiful serving bowls and a platter, a collection with gold trim and pale, faded flowers. She'd pulled them out of one of the low cabinets and had to wash them out first before they'd served the meal on them.

"My grandmother's," she says softly. "My mother had them. I - took them."

"From the apartment," he said. He handed her the potatoes and she started spooning them out of the bowl, being careful, he noted, not to scrape the bottom with the utensil.

"Yeah. My dad hasn't noticed. Not like he cooks. Mom cooked a lot - Sunday brunch was a big thing in our house." She gave him a crooked smile and rolled her eyes a little. "I even - when I pulled these out to wash them, I thought I smelled scrambled eggs and sausage."

"You may have," he said, giving it to her. "Stuff like sausage - that smell lingers, gets trapped in the material. I bet."

"Maybe," she shrugged. But they both knew it was sense memory only. She put her fork to the tenderloin and cut into it easily, brought the piece up to her mouth. He waited, watching her first taste, studying her eyes for tells.

"What's the verdict?"

She licked her bottom lip, entirely without meaning to, he could tell, and she smiled brightly at him. "It's really good, Rick. Really good. It's so tender."

He grinned, letting out a huge sigh of relief, and he took his own bite, surprised when the flavor burst in his mouth. Raspberry and citrus, the meat juicy and the rich taste of game on his tongue. "It is good."

She laughed. "You didn't believe me?"

"No, I - yeah, I believed you, but it's - I like it."

Kate only shook her head at him, her smile wide and rich and deep, lips closed but something precious and real about it that made him feel like dropping to his knees and burying his head in her lap. He didn't understand it, how she affected him like this, but he was at least beginning to learn how to ride it out, let it wash over him and leave him again like it had come.

"The potatoes are good too," she said. "And I like the - what'd you call them? Chunks?" She was laughing again, laughing at him, and she took another forkful of potatoes and closed her eyes on a hum. God, she was beautiful. She was beautiful. How had anyone told her no?

"Yeah," he got out finally. "Chunks. You like that?"

"Different texture. Good for the red potatoes. And chives? Is that what's in here?"

"Yeah. And cilantro. Some butter and a little garlic salt."

"Mm, divine. You're good at this. I'd never be able to pull off a complicated recipe like this in the time you did."

"It's the easy stuff I have trouble with," he admitted. "I guess the more complicated, the more I pay attention."

"Oh, shit," she said, her head sinking into her hand.

"What?" he startled, a tiny jolt of panic zipping through his heart. "Kate. Is it undercooked-?"

"No, no, this is wonderful - all wonderful - it's the damn diamonds. Shit, I forgot. They're still in my damn underwear drawer. Fuck, I should've taken them in this morning."

"We were both passed out this morning," he said cautiously.

She pushed back in the chair, as if she was going to leave right now, in the middle of dinner, but she stopped, both palms on the table, arrested in the motion. "I... it can wait another few hours. I don't even know how to..."

"About the diamonds, Kate," he said quietly.

She was staring down at her plate, as if the whole scene had suddenly come upon her, as if she were wondering what the hell she was even doing, dressed up and eating a fancy dinner in her apartment with a spy.

"Kate?" he said again. "The diamonds. I - there are five men dead back there. You might want to distance yourself from the whole encounter."

She shot him a stunned look, her eyes filling with horror. "I can't keep them."

"No. You can't," he said firmly. "You cannot keep them. But you can't turn them in as evidence. They place you on the scene. Where we - where I murdered five men, Kate. You can't have any connection to it at all."

"Oh, God," she murmured. "I really - I fucked that up. I really fucked that up. What was I thinking? I should've had a damn plan."

She should never have gone in the first place, but he knew he couldn't say it to her face. "My fault, love. I was the one who shot them-"

"Only because I fucking-"

"I was the one who goaded Vadim. I was the one who wouldn't let him keep you, who played for all his money. Now, look, I can... I can take the diamonds and bring them to the 12th as a special agent liaise - one of those inter-agency cooperation bullshit rides they always talk about. Build the case - but it's without you. You won’t get the credit, you’re back to square one."

She gave him a long, troubled look. "You'll get in trouble. If you take them to the 12th, you'll have to explain, officially. You'll be in deep, deep trouble."

He worked his jaw, but he couldn't find a way around it.

"Rick, your father? He won't - he really won't like that."

"No," he admitted. "He really won't. I told him I was in London. He thinks I'm lying low."

"Last night was not lying low. I dragged you into it; it's my fault. I'll take the diamonds in and I'll tell my sergeant that I won them in poker. Evidence. They'll-"

"There were three women poker players last night, Kate. Three. You can't hope to think that if a case starts up, someone won't say - hey, I never saw you."

"Only three?" she muttered. "Fuck, I thought I saw at least six or seven."

"Three."

She rubbed her forehead and groaned.

"I can make the diamonds disappear," he said finally.

She lifted her head. "You can?"

"They'll never come back to you."

"Fuck, this is messed up, Rick. I messed this up. I should have - called it in or done it differently. I should've brought fucking back-up. I messed this up."

"Because of me," he answered. "Because you were protecting my cover. The least I can do is take care of the diamonds."

She growled and hung her head and he knew it wasn't right; he knew he was compromising her in this way. He'd already compromised her when she'd ran last night. Ran away from five dead men.

"Okay," she said tightly. "Okay."

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her knee, squeezing in support. But he didn't move to take her, didn't try to force her into him.

She lifted her head and stared out through the window at the sky beyond. "I screwed up. All this work, and I screwed it up in one night." Kate shut down, eyes closing. "What am I doing?" she whispered.

She blinked as if coming out of a trance, and the change that fell over her made him withdraw his hand, shivering as if ice water had been dumped down his back.

Beckett took up her fork and began to eat, but it was mechanical and rote, it was doing it just to get it over with. It lacked all joy.

She wasn't here with him any more; she was somewhere else.

He wondered if she was remembering the notes on those index cards, if she was playing out the tragedy in her mind.

That was the point, wasn't it? She wasn't supposed to be doing this, none of this, fancy clothes and a meal at home with her boyfriend-spy. That wasn't what her life was supposed to be about.

There was no room for him.

\-----

"Seriously, Castle," she said, too clipped, too fast. "I got it. Just - go do whatever. Take the dog out."

He let her take the plate from his hands, let her push him away from the kitchen sink; she was still in the black dress but her eyes were tired and withdrawn. It was like he'd stepped into a scene from an old married couple, unsatisfied and at odds, no longer caring enough to fight.

But they weren't in a fight. She'd just come to the realization that he was no good for her, that his way of life didn't mesh with hers, that if she kept him around, it was going to jeopardize her shot of making detective. He had too many secrets and she knew them.

It made this impossible.

"Will you please just take the dog out? He's whining at the front door. Richard."

He snapped to attention and blinked at her, nodded slowly. "Yeah, I can do that." He turned and searched for the leash, at a loss.

"Rick," she sighed.

He stood in the middle of her apartment, halfway between the kitchen and the living room, and he couldn't figure out what to do.

"Rick." Her fingers were wet against his forearm and he looked over at her, helpless.

"I don't know where the leash is," he said, his chest tightening.

"On the table beside the door," she said softly. Her fingers closed around his forearm, soapy and warm. "You made dinner; the least I can do is clean up."

"I left it a mess in here," he said, scanning the kitchen. He hadn't thought to clean as he went; he'd just been focused on doing it right, getting it perfect. "I left you a mess, Kate."

"It's okay. I can handle it. Rick, it's okay." She reached out and cupped the side of his face, fingers coolly wet, and she leaned in and kissed him. A slow, vivid exploration of his mouth, her tongue sliding along his bottom lip and pushing inside. He clutched her hips in desperation; she stepped into him and hooked her arms around his neck, her body coming up against his.

He wasn't breathing; he was only breathing her. The taste of raspberries and the rich dark chocolate of her mouth, the scent of honey and lotion and perfume in his lungs. She tightened her hold around his neck and she was the perfect height to hold her close, so close, so necessary in his arms.

She broke from his mouth and whispered something he couldn't hear, her lips dragging along his.

It wasn't okay.

But he didn't know what else to do.

"Leash is on the table," she murmured. "I'll have it cleaned up before you even get back."

Everything in order, everything straight. He'd never have to deal with it when it came to her; she wasn't built like that, wasn't able to hand over the mess and let him help. This was all she needed him for, his job was this, the physical, the kiss that curled her toes and had her teasing her fingers in his belt.

"I'll be right back," he rasped.

She kissed him again, a little roughly, and pushed him away from her.

\-----

Cujo paced the whole length of the park with him, and then back again, circling and watching, completely used to Castle’s sense of ‘go for a walk.’ He did his business and Castle scooped it up with the plastic bag (Beckett had come after him in the entry of her apartment and pulled the bag from the drawer of the side table and pushed it into his hands with a shake of her head). He threw it away in the public trash can and made another loop around the block adjacent to theirs and then they were back on Kate’s street.

Cujo knew the way home, his stride lengthening as he pulled on the leash. Castle found himself holding the dog back, reluctant to go on, scanning the sidewalk for threats or an action he needed to take instead of going up those stairs and back inside that apartment.

He was bad for her. He left her a mess when he went, and here she was kissing him and assuring him she could handle it. He wanted to do better, but he didn’t know what else to do, how to leave a lighter tread, how to erase his footprint, how to keep from wrecking her whole life.

His father had always warned him leave no trace behind, but he’d wanted to have someone who remembered him, who wanted him, and in that selfishness, he’d done this to her.

She was going to get in trouble over the diamonds and the dead if he wasn’t extremely careful, and while it’d been dicey, the entire operation, she’d been going in clean before he’d butted into things.

She was trying to make detective in Vice so she could work her way to Homicide; she had plans for her life and he’d trampled through like a fucking elephant, laying waste to whatever was in his way. And then when she kept herself back from him, when she’d only been trying to fucking protect herself (she’d known what it was going to do to her), he’d seduced his way into those private, vulnerable places too.

He was a fucking asshole and he didn’t even know how to stop.

She needed her mother’s murderer caught and she needed her father to stand up and tackle the grief. But. did she need him at all? A man without a name, a man who couldn’t give her a normal life, a man who only offered lies?

Well, fuck, she needed someone. And here he was; she was fucking stuck with him. He wasn’t a noble kind of guy; he wasn’t bowing out for some fucker like Royce to put her off for her own damn good. No. He was here, he was inside, trampling around like an elephant, but he could figure out how to be better, how to pick up his feet, how to stop leaving marks.

Fuck.

Back inside, you asshole. Get back in there.

Castle took the steps two at a time and the dog kept up easily, his mouth wide and smiling up at Castle as if proud of him. Yeah, time to man up, face this thing head on. He was going to figure out how to do this, how to be the guy to get her where she wanted to be, how to partner her like she deserved.

The sex was intense and amazing and it helped, it really did. He thought maybe it brought something to her she’d been missing, just as it’d done the same for him. Fuck, she’d dressed up for him for their dinner tonight. She was taking in his poor orphaned dog for him. His presence in her life was doing something right; he was going to find a way to-

Oh, fuck. It was so simple.

Personal life and professional life, right? He’d compromised her professional life last night by forcing her to choose between protecting him and doing her job. He hadn’t meant to - he’d been thinking like a spy. But he’d compromised her integrity and he couldn’t bring that back.

But he could help her get where she wanted to be. Nothing even CIA-related; no strings even needed to be pulled. Professionally, she was going to make detective with or without him. Even in spite of him.

Personally. Her mother’s case - that was what she wanted, her golden ticket, her crusade and quest. Her holy grail was justice for her mother.

He could help. He could make up for a lot of the shit he’d put in her life by unearthing a few new leads, giving her resources she didn’t have yet.

Now that he had a plan, he felt a lot better about the mess he was always leaving her with.

Professional or personal - either mess wasn’t okay with him. He’d make at least one thing right.

\-----

Castle opened the door and expected to have to charm her, to get her to laugh again, to bring her back to him. The dog woofed as if to remind him to take off the leash and he came back to the entry to free the poor thing, chafed at the delay.

When he straightened up, coiling the leash in his hand and dropping it to the table, he saw the kitchen was sparkling clean again. Every trace of his work this afternoon was completely gone; he could hear the dishwasher running, the only sign that any of it had happened at all.

The immaculate kitchen gave way to the empty living room and he slipped off his shoes and moved down the hall, looking for traces of Kate Beckett. The bathroom light was off and the bedroom door was pulled mostly closed, a thin yellow glow at the door; he hesitated on the threshold, his hand hovering at the knob.

The dog trotted past him and nudged open the door with his head, went right on inside. Castle heard her from the room, greeting the dog. “Hey, wolf, where’s your negligent foster dad, huh?”

He froze, unable to move, certain he couldn’t go in there right after that.

“Hey, Castle,” she called out, as if expecting him down the hall. “Grab me a glass of water, would you?”

He tiptoed backwards, slid along the hall until he got to the bathroom, and then he called back. “Yeah. Any special glass?”

“Plastic cup, the one from the bar down the street.”

He’d known she would have a preference, and didn’t that say something? He was pretty sure it did. He knew what she liked, knew where she moved, what she gravitated towards. He opened the cabinet door and pulled out her plastic cup, ran water in it, and carried it back to her.

When he opened the door, the dog was on the floor at the foot of the bed, muzzle on his paws, and Castle grinned, finally lifting his gaze up to Kate.

“Whoa, fuck,” he gasped.

She was wearing only that teddy. And she’d - she’d already gotten started.

Her fingers were pushed past the thong of black lace and she was working them in and out of her sex, her head thrown back against the metal of her headboard. She tilted her chin and opened those dark, fuck-me eyes.

“Put it on the bedside table,” she murmured.

“You need a hand with that?”

“I do,” she murmured. “You have a free hand?”

“I can get one,” he muttered, setting the cup down hard on the table. He pulled the tail of his dress shirt out of his pants and unbuttoned it quickly, put a knee onto the mattress near her hip. “I can smell you.”

“Can you?” she said, a little breathless now that she saw him watching her. Her breasts were strapped down by the teddy, the black lace turning her nipples dark. He sank down on the bed and pulled the shirt off, tossed it towards her closet door and the laundry basket beyond.

“You wet, baby?” He yanked off his socks and unbuttoned his pants, studying the slick of her fingers around her folds as they disappeared behind the black lace.

“Pretty wet.”

He blinked and lifted his gaze to hers; her eyes were hooded and intent on his hands as he pushed down his pants and boxers. “Are your fingers going all the way inside you?”

She stuttered a breath. “N-no, just teasing. Feels better with your fingers inside me.”

“Yeah,” he gruffed, naked now and settling in at her side. She let the thong pop back to her cunt and reached for his cock, her wet fingers wrapping around him.

“I love feeling you harden in my hand,” she murmured. “The blood rushing and throbbing in your cock.”

“Fuck,” he grunted. He really had thought he’d have to make some kind of herculean effort to salvage this night after their dinner, but she was plowing right ahead.

“You wanna touch me?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I want to touch you. Will you keep your hand right there on my cock while I do it?”

She squeezed him gently, pumping down his shaft. “Like this?”

“Just like that,” he rasped. “Use your other hand on your breast.” He waited until she obeyed, her other hand coming up to cup her breast through the teddy, her lashes falling.

Castle took in the picture she made, her body lying spread out before him as she kneaded her breast. Her hand on his cock was warm and strong, those thin fingers that knew exactly what to do to make him hard for her.

He laid his palm at her belly and she moaned, more than ready for him. She arched into his touch as he pushed aside the thong, and then he combed through her pubic hair and down to her sex. She was so wet, so very wet, and he slipped his fingers between her folds, watching her face as he touched her.

She cried out his name, a soft and desperate thing, and he saw it then, lurking behind her aggressive, sexual need.

She wasn’t okay with it, but she was damn well going to make herself okay with it.

He leaned into the touch of her around his cock and pushed a finger inside her cunt, lowering his mouth to her cheek as he worked her. “We can do this,” he murmured. “Just like this, baby. We make it so good.”

“So good,” she moaned.

He pushed a second finger inside her, his cock throbbing inside the fist of her hand. She was clenching for him, seeking him out with her cunt, and he dropped his forehead to hers and breathed hard to concentrate.

“It won’t always be a mess,” he murmured. “We do this so right, we do this so very right, baby. Don’t we?”

“Ah-” She grunted and arched hard into his hand and he couldn’t do it any more, couldn’t keep away from her.

Castle fell between her legs and hooked his finger in the thong, ripped it open. She cried out and glared at him, but he didn’t fucking care. He laid his body close to hers, mouth pushing to her disapproval, and he bit at her bottom lip. He felt her lashes as she closed and opened her eyes, and he gripped her hip as she helped line him up at her entrance.

“Yes,” she groaned. “Just like that. Exactly what I need.”

He thrust inside her and she moaned, rising to take him. Her arm came around his neck and he felt her other hand still on her breast, kneading and twisting her nipple. He held himself up on an elbow and thrust, hitting her clit with every stroke inside her. He kept his rhythm even, insistent, and she rolled with it, meeting him, finding him there.

“This is it,” she panted at his cheek. “Just this, just this. Oh, God, Rick, please.”

He thumbed her clit and worked harder, felt her cunt around him so wet and hot and tight, the way she clutched at him. So eager. Desperate to make it right again. “Come on, baby. Come for me, Kate. You can do it, sweetheart. Just let go, let go.”

She groaned and slammed her hips up into him, her arm tightening at his neck. Her mouth opened at his cheek and she bit him, growling as she thrust.

He rubbed her clit and stroked inside her, gritting his teeth to keep himself in check, sweat slicking his chest. “Come on, Kate. Baby, you can do it. You’re so hot around me, so tight. I love how strong your body is, how you don’t let go, you don’t give up. It’s gonna be so good when we get there, love. You know it is.”

She grunted and she beat a furious rhythm against him, moaning for it, clinging to him, and he shifted his hand up to the nape of her neck, gripped her hard.

“Don’t make me punish you, Beckett. You better fucking come. I am not going without you.”

Kate groaned and arched into him, the lace of her teddy rubbing him raw, and he used the bow of her spine off the bed to slap her fresh, pink ass.

Kate shouted and shattered apart, throwing herself onto his cock, so wet and tight that he spilled inside her without warning, his body emptied out into hers.


	13. Chapter 13

He tried pulling her into him, but she groaned and closed her legs, her hand against his chest as if to hold him off. Castle paused, blinking through the last haze of release, and fell to one side, watching her and trying to understand.

Maybe she was upset, more upset than she’d-

“No,” she murmured. “Just a little sore.” She gave him a reluctant grimace and curled onto her side, drawing her knees up. The movement reminded him of last night, of how he’d taken her, and everything they’d done in between, and Castle looped his arm around her shoulders and tangled his hand in her hair.

“Sore? My fault. Let me start a bath; you can soak. I’ve got to do something about those diamonds.”

“Oh,” she murmured, eyebrows furrowing. “Right now - tonight?”

“Yeah.” He grimaced back at her. “I’ll take them tonight. A way to get them out of the country without it coming back to us here.”

She let out a sigh and put a hand over her eyes.

He caught her raised elbow and skimmed his hand up to her wrist, tugging softly. “It’s okay, Kate. I should have been more careful. I know better than to take action on US soil-”

“Oh God,” she gasped, lifting up on an elbow. “US soil. That’s - a big deal. CIA can’t operate here and you... shit. Castle, I’ve put you in deep-”

“No, love, I did it to myself. I got - upset. I was trying to prove something, I guess, trying to be a hero. I should have let it play out, left the game when the stakes got that high, watched from the sidelines like a good partner. That’s how Eastman would have done it. I blew it.”

She dropped her head back to the pillow, her hair spilling around her face. She was studying him intently, and she raised her hand to run her fingers through his hair, pushing it back off his face.

“Rick, face it, we both fucked up,” she sighed. “And I’d take the diamonds to my lieutenant, own the consequences, if I thought I could keep you out of it. But I can’t.”

He swallowed back the regret and nodded. “I’ve put you in this position and I’m sorry for that, Kate. For doing this to you. I’ll get the diamonds out of the country and we can work on getting Vadim legally.”

Her fingers curled in his hair and she leaned in, softly kissed him. “A mistake,” she murmured. “You shouldn’t have to pay for it.”

She suddenly looked worn out. Exhausted with all of it. He wondered how she’d carried this for so long, all of it. Her mother’s murder, her father’s alcoholism, the stress of the Police Academy and then trying to work her way up at the 12th. She went at it - she just never stopped.

And it was wearing on her; she needed to rest. He needed to keep his fucking hands off her for once, and let her.

He leaned into the touch of her hand in his hair and then he turned his head to kiss her wrist. “Bath, love. I’ll start you and then meet a guy I know.”

“Eastman,” she said quietly.

He didn’t answer and she sighed, letting go of him. Castle leaned in and kissed the warm slope of her neck.

He slid out of bed and swiped his boxers off the floor, pulling them on before heading for the door.

“Rick.”

He turned around and she had curled up in the middle of the bed, suddenly young and tired and vulnerable. She had never meant to cause all of this, to get this tangled up in his spy life so that her own professional career was at risk. This was his doing and he’d find a way to make it up to her.

“Thank you,” she said finally. “I don’t... just - thanks.”

\-----

He met Eastman at Grand Central; the man looked harried and irritated and when Castle caught up to him and sat down on the opposite bench, Eastman sighed.

“I know,” Castle said quickly, staring off into the distance.

Behind him on the other bench, Eastman grunted. “You don’t know. Your father thinks you’re in London. He thinks I’m in Dublin, backing you up.”

“You’re backing me up, alright,” Castle sighed. “I’ve got some accessories I need to make clean.”

“What did you do, Castle?”

He appreciated how Eastman was using the name Castle had come up with for himself, how Eastman was always patient and wise about things like this. Never belittling. And Castle probably deserved some belittling.

“Beckett - the girl, you know? - she had a run-in with an illegal gambling ring and I backed her up. I acquired some winnings.”

“Winnings. And then what?”

“I took out five of theirs. Beckett and I escaped. It’s probably been reported on some level.”

“Winnings and five. The winnings?”

“I have it here,” he said. “Diamonds.”

“Ah, shit.”

Castle sighed. “Yeah. I’m afraid this group is probably into more than just the gambling. Diamonds means-”

“Sex trafficking. Probably international.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“I could look into it,” Eastman said. “You think?”

“Beckett would... I think she wants it. She’s looking to impress the lieutenant in her unit. She wants to make detective.”

“I can see that. She’s relentless. You think it’s too big for her?”

“Even if it is, she wouldn’t back down. In fact, she’d go at it all the harder.”

“Huh.”

Behind him, Eastman was quiet and Castle resisted the urge to turn around and gauge the man’s face for clues. Instead, he sat just as silently on his own bench, watching the flow of foot traffic through Grand Central Station.

“You want her watched?”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “No. I’m already tangled up in this - you put someone on her and they’d get tangled in it too. And then Black would absolutely hear about it.”

“You think he hasn’t? He knows her name. Knows she’s NYPD. That you come here to fuck her.”

Castle gripped his hands around the edge of the bench seat and stared into the crowd. “I know. Does he - think it’s more?”

“Holy fuck. Do you think it’s more?”

“Eastman. Don’t be a dick.”

“You think it’s more.” Eastman sounded honestly surprise. “You know you have to file an incident report, Castle. Every encounter has to be documented. She’s supposed to be background checked, interviewed. There are rules-”

“I know,” he snapped. Softened. “I know, but if my father - he’d see all of that. All of - of her. I can’t have him knowing...”

“That’s she unhinged?”

“She’s not unhinged,” he snarled. “Don’t fucking-”

“She’s a little bit intense, Castle, and you know it. This gambling thing where five men died? Yeah, tell me that’s not unhinged. And your father will not be pleased.”

“Mark, that’s exactly why,” Castle answered. “Can’t you do it instead? You do the background check. You put all the paperwork together but you just don’t - turn it in. You see for yourself she’s in the clear, and that’s good enough.”

“Shit.”

“It’s too much. I know. I know I shouldn’t ask it of you, but I - she’s a cop, man. A cop. And she doesn’t even want to - it’s not like she’s even asking me state secrets. Remember what you said about Carrie? She doesn’t even want to know.”

“Carrie. You think about her like that? You’re going to marry her?”

His mouth dropped open. He wheezed.

A dry chuckle sounded behind him. “Fine. I’ll run interference with Black for a little longer, do the paperwork and keep it in my drawer. You got your winnings? What do you want done with it?”

“I need a fund,” he said quietly. “For Beckett. Get me a quiet account, Swiss, I’m thinking. This group is probably Russian mob, well-funded. There’s work here.”

“You’re going after this sex trafficking ring without her?”

“No, hell no. I’m leaving that to Beckett. She can handle herself, but more than that, I think she’s learned - we’ve both learned our lesson on this.”

Eastman was silent for a moment, and Castle knew he was uncomfortable with all of this. But he couldn’t have his father doing the background on Beckett. This wasn’t Colleen, and it wasn’t like his father’s own mistake with a young actress in 1968. This wasn’t a mistake at all. And he wasn’t even able to knock her up, so what the fuck did his father matter at all? His father didn’t get a say in this, not her.

Behind him, Eastman let out a soft whistle. “This is about her mother’s murder case. That’s what you’re doing.”

Castle winced, surprised Eastman could see that much. “You’ve already done a background on her then.”

“No, damn it. Your father has. Were you not listening to me?”

“Black knows about her mother’s murder?”

“It was a pretty big deal. She was a lawyer - defense attorney working on a high profile mob case, pro bono, as well as a sitting counsel on two other cases. Any of those cases might have backfired on her. I’m betting the mob - death like that in her own home. Reeks of the mob.”

“Yeah, but she was a defense attorney, you said. Why kill the woman defending you?”

“It was the mob’s hitman. He was already in jail for whacking an FBI agent. He was probably flipped.”

“Shit, that’s complicated. Fuck. That really makes this difficult. The FBI is going to be all over that case the second they get a whiff of CIA involvement. Even if Beckett went back through it herself as NYPD, they’d be on it.”

“Yeah. I’d walk lightly over that one. If I were you, Castle, I’d keep out of her personal life. Let it go.”

“No,” he said grimly. “Can’t do that. She’s - I compromised her professional integrity last night, made her part of my world. She doesn’t live any part of her life in the shadows, Mark, she has too much at stake for that, and I’ve got to make it up to her. Giving her resources, a damn place to start?, that’s how I keep from being a negative in her life and start being a positive.”

Eastman was silent behind him and he didn’t know if it was judgment or acceptance. But Castle couldn’t wait. He lifted his arm and laid it over the back of the bench, carefully let the brown bag drop from his hand. He heard the diamonds inside clink together as they hit the bench seat behind him and then slowly Eastman gathered them up.

“Use those to get me an account. I want access to it by the end of this week. I’ll start work before I head back to Ireland.”

Eastman sighed. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

\-----

When Castle got back to her apartment, it had taken him two hours on subway lines and walking through Central Park to appease his paranoia. He opened her front door and his shoulders dropped in weariness.

He hadn’t been this tired in a long time. Maybe it was nothing more sinister than the last twenty-four hours catching up to him: he’d played off the five men’s deaths, but that shit always hung around until he talked with the debrief team.

He couldn’t do that now though. Not for this. About time he fucking grew up anyway, handled his own life rather than detailing every event and handing it over like a little boy with a broken toy. He could put the wheels back on himself; he didn’t need a debrief team asking him And did that make you feel ashamed?

So he was weary and he’d gotten hung up in this woman who had... issues. A real life - complicated as it was. A woman who was intense and independent and stubborn, who wasn’t going down without a fight. Absolutely beautiful. He was caught, and he’d handle it like a grown-ass adult.

Castle headed down the hall and rapped lightly on the bathroom door, but she called out from the bedroom.

“In here.”

He moved past the bathroom and pushed open the bedroom door, saw the dog in his spot on the bed with Kate on her side, her back to him. She was shoving something under her mattress and then rolling to look at him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he said, curious. “What was that?”

“Work stuff,” she said. “Dog took your spot. Where you gonna sleep?”

He huffed and pulled off his shoes, kicked them under the chair. “Cujo. Off the bed.”

The dog ignored him.

Castle sank down onto the mattress as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, nudged the dog with his elbow. “Come on, you mongrel. Get up.”

Kate smirked at him and wrapped her arm around the wolf, stroking his fur and curling up with him.

“That’s just mean,” Castle muttered, tossing his shirt off.

Kate laughed and sat up, tugging gently on the dog’s collar. “Time to go, Cujo. I told you just until he got home.” She got the dog up and shooed him off and the wolf gave him a backward glance, kind of nasty.

Castle pulled off his pants and then slid under the covers, brushing dog hair off his pillow. Kate watched him as he got settled, and then she laid her palm over his sternum.

“You got it - taken care of?”

“Yeah. It’s done. Eastman.”

“Thank you, Rick. I won’t - you can be assured that I’ll never do that to you again.”

He turned his head and looked at her, laying his hand over hers on his chest. “You can do that to me any time.”

She laughed as if startled. It sounded beautiful in the darkness, bright, light, gorgeous. She pushed in and kissed him softly, petting his chest with her fingers. “Sleep for now. Be better in the morning.”

“Better in the morning?” he smiled.

“My mom used to say that. Sometimes it’s even almost true.”

He wanted to love her - he wanted so badly for her to accept it. Instead he just reached out and cupped the side of her face, brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “It can be true. It will be true. We can make it happen.”

“Maybe you can,” she murmured. “I’ll enjoy your morning with you, how about that?”

“I’d like that.”

\-----

Beckett had fallen asleep only minutes after Castle had settled into bed with her, and he laid there listening to her breaths evening out, feeling the rise and fall of her ribs under his arm. He was curled up behind her, their bodies warm together, but he wasn’t ready to sleep.

He dreaded his departure, and it was closer than ever. Beckett knew it too, and it had been obvious tonight that she’d been protecting herself, closing ranks. He didn’t want to be the thing that made her crumble, but her distance, the wall she put up, gave him the urge to knock it down, knock her down, make her come back to him.

But they’d fucked a lot the last twenty-four hours and coming wasn’t going to happen. Not when she was sore enough to actually turn away from him - she never did that. She just went for it. Must be a sign.

He could be good. He wanted to be good for her, but she had turned her back to him and closed her eyes, and as she’d settled in to sleep, she’d given him a fond smile without heat to it.

He was trying to decide if Beckett didn’t know how to love, or if she knew all too well. Were the distant looks and the wall of ice just a facade that she’d learned to build so her heart couldn’t be wrecked again, or had she simply perfected the art of getting what she wanted?

It was one or the other. As a spy, he ought to be able to tell if she was manipulating him, if the fierceness was real. She was a tiger in bed, but he’d seen the tiger out of it as well - passion and compassion, heat and aggression and even tenderness towards him.

She had so many protective layers, and he wanted to peel them away, wanted to get to the heart of her. He thought sometimes he had, thought sometimes that all of it fell away in the moments when they were most together, when he pushed so far inside her that he stole all her breath and all she could do was stare at him.

Sometimes, he thought she loved him too, loved him like he loved her, but that she just didn’t want to, didn’t want to be that vulnerable. Couldn’t.

Her mother, her father, fuck, even her training officer had abandoned her. It wasn’t like Agent Castle was much different either.

No wonder. No fucking wonder.

Damn.

He couldn’t do a thing about it. It was keeping him awake. He had no way to make it better, no way to fix this. He kept leaving. He just kept leaving. He had to.

Damn it.

His thoughts were interrupted by the harsh tones of her cell phone on the bedside table, vibrating and ringing both so that the entire room seemed to shake with it. Kate woke instantly, jerking out of his arms and snatching up her phone, her voice cracking as she answered.

“Beckett,” she croaked.

He sat up with her, and as she listened to whoever it was on the other end, her hand came to her hair and scraped it back, blinking.

“Mm, yeah. No, no, don’t. I can be there in-” She was cut off, and her eyes drifted to his, dark and pleading and broken. So raw, so vulnerable in the dead of night. “No, please don’t. I know you’re closing soon. I can be there before you close. I promise.”

Castle slid out of bed, started hunting for their clothes, found her bra and tossed it towards her on the bed as she hung up. “Your dad?”

She nodded and took her bra, started threading it on under her shirt. Castle tugged on pants and shoes, found a t-shirt and her thin fleece jacket. She slipped into whatever he handed to her, her face wan in the darkness.

“I have a shift in the morning, early,” she said, pushing her fingers to the end of the sleeves. She looked like a lost little girl in her too-big jacket. “I have to be at work.”

“I can stay up and watch him,” he said quietly. “If that’s what he needs.”

“You shouldn’t have to-”

“No, I shouldn’t. But neither should you, Kate. Come on.” He gripped her elbow and tugged and she followed him out of the bedroom toward the front door. “We’ll get him, take him home.”

He didn’t say it would be okay but he wasn’t sure it would. He wasn’t sure at all.

And he was done with making her promises he couldn’t keep.

\-----

She'd done it - she'd gotten them to the bar before it closed, but it had been a close thing. When they arrived, it was a shallow flight of stairs down to a basement-entrance to the shitty bar, a dive that looked like it routinely had to kick patrons out.

Jim was leaning against the wall outside, his head tilted back as if gulping down the night, and the bartender was flipping off the lights and locking up.

The guy said nothing at all to Beckett, only kept right on going, out to the sidewalk and down the block, swallowed by the night.

Castle kept his eyes on her father and tried to assess how close to vomit the man might be - he didn't want to deal with that tonight. Didn't want Kate to deal with it, actually. But Jim was such a sober drunk; it was often hard to tell.

Castle muscled past Kate as she tried to pry her father away from the wall that clearly was keeping him upright. "Get us a cab," he told her shortly, taking over.

She was furious - he could see it on her face - and he figured he could take her anger and deserve it too, so long as she didn't look quite so much like the broken-hearted little girl he'd seen when she'd gotten the call tonight.

"Oh, Rick," her father said. "Fancy meeting you here."

Castle got his shoulder under the man's armpit. "Yes, sir. Imagine that."

"Dad," she growled.

"Cab, Kate," Castle insisted. She huffed at him and turned away, heading back up the stairs to the street level, leaving Castle to maneuver her father up that same obstacle. "Come on, Jim. You can do it."

"No, really," Jim said then. "I do not think it's wise."

"No, sir, it really isn't." He got a foot on the bottom step and pushed off, practically dragging her father with him. Jim was trying - Castle could tell he was - but it was uncoordinated and weak, and the effort made it all the harder. He wouldn't dishonor the man by slinging him over his shoulder and carrying him, but this was getting ridiculous.

Surely her father knew how ridiculous this was? The last few times he'd done this with Kate, picked up her father, Jim had been able to walk on his own. Even the time that he'd come alone, Jim had been loose and stumbling but he hadn't been quite this smashed.

Kate came back with a tightness to her eyes that made Castle think she was going to cry, but instead she dragged her father's arm over her own shoulders and eased the load on the other side.

"Cab's at the top."

"You have magical powers," Jim sighed. "Could’t find a cab."

"I know, Dad," she murmured. "Helps I'm a cop."

Castle was one hundred percent certain she'd not flashed her badge in the street to get a cab, but he didn't doubt she'd used her magical powers to procure one. He'd had no luck on his own that time he'd come, the two of them barely able to win over a passing driver. He figured Kate had smiled and leaned in close and that had done the trick.

"Last step," she grunted.

Castle put a little extra effort into it and they hauled her father up to the sidewalk without spilling too badly over it. Kate staggered but Castle reached out a quick hand and snagged her by the sleeve, kept her from rocking too for off balance.

She flashed him a smile of thanks and they worked together to get her father into the cab.

\-----

"I'll stay right here. You sleep," he murmured.

Kate struggled to move past him, to get inside her father's room, but Castle held onto her hips and nudged her back again, unrelenting. "Castle, he's my-"

"I know, but you spend enough nights doing it alone. I'm here today, let me at least give you a break. You'll have it all on your own again soon enough, love."

She went rigid in his grip and then - all at once - entirely limp. Kate draped over his body, her arms coming around his neck, her hips flush with his, and even though she didn't cry, didn't say a word, he felt it crashing down on her.

"Sleep in the guest - your old room," he murmured. "Sexy, right? Childhood bed. I'll come slip under the covers with you after I'm sure he's okay. You and I can fool around a little before you have to go in to work."

She grunted something unintelligible and her face turned into his neck, her arms tightening once before she let him go. Kate stepped back and glanced past him to where her father sat on his bed, head buried in his hands. "What did you say about being better in the morning?"

"Still true," he shrugged. "And I think you said it. In a fit of optimism totally unlike you."

She let loose a startled sound, almost a laugh, and her eyes came back to his. "Totally unlike me," she echoed, shaking her head softly.

He stepped in closer, cupped his hand at the back of her neck. "Still true," he said again. He kissed her softly. "And staying away from your bed will keep me from taking you again."

She did laugh then, softening imperceptibly, and he could tug her against him, cradle the back of her head with a hand and her hips with his own. She hummed a kiss against the skin below his jaw. "Taking me, huh? I think I'm the one doing the taking."

"Oh, sweetheart, I just let you think that."

She laughed again, a brighter sound, more relief than actual joy, and he nuzzled into her hair and inhaled quietly, filling himself up with her. She stroked her fingers at his nape, scratching at the short hair buzzed at his neck.

"Go to bed, Kate," he said finally. Though he still didn't put any distance between them.

"I could-"

"No, baby. Go to bed."

"You're such a damn autocrat," she muttered. But she turned her head away from him and let out a huffing breath, clutching the material of his shirt at his hips. She let go first, and he finally unlatched from her, finally released her.

"But you love - it, you love it," he said, quirking a smile at her to cover the almost-thing he'd said.

"Hmm," she murmured, a slow eyebrow slanting over her forehead. She turned away and headed down the hall for what used to be her own bedroom.

Castle watched her go, and then he moved back inside her father's room and settled down in the chair pulled up alongside the bed.

The chair smelled like Kate. She'd done this very same thing way too many times.


	14. Chapter 14

Castle stayed up and had a strange, circuitous conversation with Jim Beckett, starting with the Mets and circling around to Kate and then back to their common grief again. Johanna was a ghost in this home, and Rick could practically feel her presence even now, hovering, haunting.

Jim laid limply in the bed and moaned something, curled onto his side with glassy eyes. Kate had said he usually threw up once and then passed out, and Castle was waiting for it, bucket at the ready.

"She's so beautiful," Jim mumbled. Castle frowned and glanced around the room, the feeling so strong now that he almost felt like the woman would be standing over his shoulder. "She was so..."

"Jim?"

Her father turned ashen, his eyes staring off somewhere past Castle's head and then he lurched for the bucket and vomited.

Castle winced, but he took it, hoping that Kate had already fallen back asleep. It'd been a couple of hours, maybe she had and wouldn't be hearing this. He waited until Jim had finished and had sunk back against the mattress, and then Castle stood and headed for the bathroom.

He washed the bucket out in the bathtub, clawfoot like Kate's at her apartment, and then he washed his hands up to his elbows. When he got back to Jim, the man was on his side and snoring, deep in sleep.

Castle sighed and pulled the blanket up from the foot of the bed, the material releasing a cloud of scent that smelled feminine and musky, like perfume rather than laundry.

He stood up and glanced around the room, that strange sense of being watched making the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Jim was asleep and Kate was down the hall, but Castle wasn't... he wasn't sure he was alone.

He could smell the perfume in the blanket settling out, sense the hovering and waiting in the air.

He stood quietly in the room until the feeling passed, and then he headed for Kate's old bedroom, opening her door. She was asleep on her side, curled up small, and her full bed would be a narrow fit but he wouldn't - he couldn't - leave her alone tonight.

He pushed off his shoes and left them by the door, ready to go, and then he crawled into bed with her, having to fit his body close to hers. She woke when his arm went around her, and she angled her shoulder and turned her head to him, her eyes fuzzy.

"My mom okay?"

"No, sweetheart, your dad. Sleep, go back to sleep."

"Don't let me oversleep," she mumbled. "Can't catch you in here." Her head fell back to the pillow, her mouth open and her lips pink in the darkness. He lowered his head and softly kissed the back of her neck.

"How many boys did you let into your room, Beckett?" he rumbled against her skin. But she was already asleep, deeper and darker, further away from him.

He drew her tighter into his embrace but he was awake for a long time.

\-----

He felt the moment she woke, too early the morning and too grey the day. She was warm and pliant in his arms and then she was tense, hot, sweat breaking out on the back of her neck and a groan rumbling from her mouth.

"Fuck," she muttered.

"Good morning to you too," he whispered back. He couldn't help touching lips to the sweat of sleep, licking at the salt.

She shivered and her arm curled tighter around his, drawing her hips back into what he was so carefully trying to keep away from her. Kate hummed, the sound caught in her chest and vibrating his body.

"It really is a good morning, huh?"

Any morning he woke with her body pressed to his was definitely a good morning. But he didn't say that. He only shifted back, trying to keep his cock from insisting.

She drew her fingers down his arm and up again, erotic, hypnotic, and he tried to think of a way to change the subject, distract her. He wanted to fuck her, of course he did, but she needed a damn break. And it was early enough she might fall back asleep if he stayed still.

"I used to sneak my boyfriend in here with me," she murmured, a little laugh in her voice. "Strange to have you in his exact spot."

"He have a hard-on for you too?" he grumbled, not sure he liked that at all.

"Oh, his was much smaller, baby. Don't you worry."

He laughed, pressing his mouth against the back of her neck in reward for that. But it definitely didn't ease his cock any. She squirmed into him and he pressed his hand to her hip, faked her out by skimming his fingers under the waistband of her sweats and exploring. She went still, as she always did when he engaged, and he started talking, trying to divert.

"What was his name?"

"Razor," she muttered, her head turning into the pillow.

"Wait a second," he chuckled. "Did you just say Razor? As in, I borrowed you razor to shave before we ate dinner?"

"Yes, shut up."

"Oh, my God, Beckett, did a boy named Razor - Weenie-Dick Razor - did he take your virginity?"

"I hate you. I fucking hate you," she groaned.

"Oh, Beckett, baby, that is amazing. This is good stuff. Tell me more." He skimmed circles on her belly as she growled at him from the faceplant into her pillow, and he felt the shivers racing across her skin at his touch, at their words, at the strangely illicit nature of sleeping spooned in her childhood bed.

"Not telling you anything."

"Did he come before you? Did you come at all?"

"I really, intensely hate you right now."

"You didn't come. Oh, love, that's no good. Should I remedy that?" He skimmed his fingers into her panties and felt her hips rock into his touch. "Mm, yeah, you want me to rewrite history? I can do that. My cock is bigger than his, but if you close your eyes-"

"I don't want damn Razor in my pants," she growled. "Just you."

"Good, because if you had said yes, I'd have been forced to do something about that."

She turned onto her back and suddenly he was falling on top of her, her legs wide and hips arching and her eyes staring into him. He felt the tension radiate in her thighs and how it made her squeeze his hips, and he remembered last night, how sore she was. That wouldn't have gone away in a matter of hours.

"No, love," he murmured, dropping a kiss to her raw, open mouth. "No need for all that. You're too sore for me. Maybe if I was Weenie-Dick-"

She laughed and shut him up with a kiss and her hand on him, closing around his cock as she tussled him to his back in the bed. He hit the edge and nearly went off, making Kate laugh again, but she sat astride him and rubbed her palms down his chest to his thighs, the comforter pooling around her hips.

"You helped me out last night," she murmured. "I can help you out - really make it a good morning."

"Kate," he said, gripping her hips to stop her.

She slid her hand inside his pants and found him again, stroked softly, exploring. "You're much bigger. Mm, and we know you fit in my mouth."

"Fuck," he grunted, closing his eyes.

"Yeah, baby, that's right. Lie back and think of England."

He laughed, the sound cut off and strangled when she pushed his pants down and lowered her mouth to him.

\-----

He just gave up. He gave up; she felt so good around him, and he ached so badly for her that he just couldn’t keep stopping her.

She got him wet and then she played, rolling his balls and licking his shaft, making his heart pound so hard that his cock bobbed against her lips. She hummed and he choked on a shout, feeling it deep in his guts.

“Shhh,” she hushed, kissing the head of his cock. “Don’t let my dad hear you.”

He groaned, couldn’t keep that quiet even though he tried. She chuckled and the vibration of her voice shimmied under his skin, made sparks dance through his cock. She swallowed him and he gripped her shoulders, fingers digging into her skin. Her mouth around him, the blistering, wet heat of her, the ache in his balls for release-

He grunted a warning, and she massaged his thighs with her fingers, deep circles that wound his need in tight spirals, making it impossible for him to control it.

He came hard inside her mouth, felt her swallowing him down, his fingers tangling in her hair as his hips jerked. She sucked on him at the end of it, her hands stroking him down, settling him, and he realized he was gasping like a fish, staring at her ceiling.

She hummed and released him and he dipped his chin to look at her, the pleased glint in her eyes in the dim light, the way her lips teased over his cock as she dragged her mouth up his shaft and to his hips. Her kiss dusted like freckles across his skin and then around his belly button, her body draped over his.

She slinked up his chest, her thighs parting over his torso, her eyes staring down at him. Her hair fell forward and he skimmed his palms up her back and into that curtain of sharp-ended hair, pulled it away from her face.

“Hey,” he rasped. The feel of her over him, her breasts at his chest, her knees up at his ribs, made him feel boneless and tender and proud. Not even sure why; he just did.

“Hey,” she hummed, smiling. Her hands were planted on either side of his ears in the mattress and she dipped her head and kissed him. She was sweet tasting, bitter at the back of her tongue, and he drank it in, his hands with fistfuls of her hair.

When she broke from him, the darkness so dark that he could barely see her face, she shivered and laid her head on his shoulder.

He wrapped his arm around her and kept her close, brushing her hair away from his mouth. “That was most definitely a good morning.”

“Sad thing is - history does repeat itself,” she murmured. “You came before I could too.”

He chuckled, surprised by the amusement that hummed in his body, and he turned onto his side with her, tangling his limbs with hers, hoping she was on her way to sleep.

She nestled her face into the dark cave of his neck and let out a long breath.

Maybe he was on his way to sleep too.

\-----

When her alarm sounded from her phone, Castle was the one who slid his arm across to the bedside table and swiped the screen to shut it off. She had her eyes open when he settled back down in bed with her and her fingers came curling at his chin to keep him there for a kiss.

It was soft and rich with sleep. Her fingers against his scruff scratched and caught, and then her teeth lightly nipped his bottom lip as she parted from him.

“Morning,” she whispered.

“You have to go in to work,” he reminded her. “And I should get out of your bed before your father wakes.”

“It’s Sunday; he’ll sleep it off.”

“Mm, then stay right here, Katie Beckett.”

She twisted his ear and brought his face in close. “Don’t. Ever.”

He chuckled and reached up to grip her pinching fingers. “Yeah, doesn’t sound right. I’ll stick to baby.”

“I don’t much like that one either, but you usually call me that when your fingers are in just the right spot, so I let it go.”

He grinned even wider at her, darted in to kiss her nose. “What about when I call you love?”

“You call me that?” she said, raising an eyebrow. But her tone was too innocent, and he knew she knew. “You called me sweetheart last night.”

He watched her for a moment, wondering how she was taking it. “Did I?” he said.

“You call me that when you tell a story. Sometimes,” she hesitated. Her lips were pink and appealing before him, and her eyes were sliding away from his, so he leaned in and kissed her softly. So softly. Like she was his sweetheart.

Her fingers furled in his grip and she pushed into his kiss, seeking more of him.

“You called me kitten,” he murmured into her mouth.

She laughed, which was exactly what he’d been going for, and she pressed and twined her body with his until he could feel that amusement in her ribs. “I did. You purr after you come when you’re lying on top of me.”

“I do not.”

“You do, baby.”

“You just called me baby,” he pointed out, smiling smugly at her.

“Only because you’re not purring.”

He huffed and nuzzled his nose against hers, their foreheads knocking. She squeezed him hard, her arm around his shoulder and even her thigh pressed in tight. Then she let him go and slithered out of his arms and off the bed, pushing on him as she went.

Kate snagged her phone from the bedside table. “I have to head back to my place and get ready for work,” she said. “You staying or coming?”

“I already came,” he grinned up at her.

She laughed, her smile widening in that sultry, sexy mouth. “Yes, you did. You taste salty in the morning.”

“Well fuck. Now I’ve got to stay in bed a minute. You showering here or there?”

“There. Come on. I’m gonna check on my dad, make sure he didn’t throw up, and then we’ll go.”

“Yeah, that did it. Thanks for that. I can still smell it.”

Kate paused at the door and he realized - too late - what he’d said. Shit.

“He threw up on you?”

“In the bucket,” he murmured, sitting up and throwing off the covers. “Not a big deal, Kate.”

She looked forlorn standing there in the doorway, her hair disheveled around her face, cheeks and eyes pale without make-up. He came to her and wrapped his arms around her, kissed her temple.

“I misspoke,” he said quietly. “I know it’s a big deal. But he’ll sleep it off, and you need to go to work.”

She nodded and turned out of his arms, heading for the door.

\-----

While Kate got ready for work - quickly - Castle tried to keep out of her way. He needed to buy her an automatic coffee pot, one that would start percolating on a timer, because as it was, he wasn’t sure it’d brew before she had to leave.

He knew better than to make her breakfast, settled instead for toast, butter spread over it with a little cinnamon and sugar. He smashed the two pieces together so that it wouldn’t spill on her uniform - trick he’d learned in the field - and wrapped it in a papertowel as he waited on her coffee.

Kate came out into the living room, her hair twisted up tightly, a knot at her nape that she had to bobby pin like crazy to make it stay.

“Why’d you cut your hair?” he finally asked. “Must be harder to pull back for the uniform.”

She gave him barely a glance and moved straight for coffee, making a disgruntled noise when she saw it wasn’t ready yet. Castle nudged her aside and gave her the toast instead.

“Eat this. I’ll fix your coffee.”

“You have to leave today, don’t you?” she said, unwrapping the papertowel and staring down at the toast.

“Flight out Monday morning,” he said. He’d been eyeing a late Sunday flight, but not now.

She shifted her gaze to him and bit into the toast, not commenting. The coffee finally perked and began to run, and Castle busied himself getting down her mug and finding the creamer she liked in her fridge.

“My shift ends by three,” she said into that silence. “If you want to come meet me?”

“Yeah,” he startled, spinning back to her with stupid surprise in his voice. “Yeah, I’ll come pick you up. We can go to Remy’s?”

“Sounds good,” she smiled. “Our place. I’ll be starving by then, so don’t be late. And then we can head home and... have some fun.”

She had rushed right past that little our place comment, but he had heard it. Too late, Beckett. “Yeah, I did promise you as much sex as you wanted all weekend, didn’t I?”

Kate grinned and nodded to the coffee pot. “Make me a thermos to go, baby. And while you wait for me to get off work, be thinking of creative ways to come.”

\-----

He bought a second burner phone and called his father, knowing the secure line through the CIA would bounce him around a few countries. It was how he usually made contact, so it wasn't anything new, and he hoped his father wouldn't be suspicious.

He did think to wonder if Eastman had been as careful making his way to New York as Castle had been. Eastman was Castle's handler; therefore, wherever Eastman went, it could be assumed Castle had already been. His father wasn't stupid.

"Richard. Report."

"I've been monitoring the situation, had Eastman run a few checks for me," Castle said. He hoped that was vague enough to dismiss in his father's mind whatever movements of Eastman's he might have noticed. "I should be good to go back Monday morning."

"Have you sent in your contact report?"

Castle froze. Did his father know about Beckett? He was supposed to be filing contact reports but he hadn't. At first because he'd met her during his one week of absolute freedom, and then because he just - couldn't figure out how to say it, what to say, not now that it'd been so long seeing her and not reporting it.

"Contact report, sir?"

"For the damn British embassy. Your merry band of men took out their whole convoy, son. You-"

"Oh, I suppose I should. They fire-bombed us, you know. All we did was piss on their tires and truss them up and yet they-"

"Is this bias creeping into your tone?"

Castle stopped, took a breath, wondered how to play this. He'd learned at West Point to know your enemy but play your own game, your own rules. He'd applied that knowledge to his father's constant manipulating, his father's tests of skill and endurance; he wouldn't break first.

"Bias?" he said carefully. If he seemed sympathetic to the Irish Nationals, his father would be watching him closely. But it would also allay whatever suspicions Black might be having about his real whereabouts, his clandestine behavior during his down time.

He was only seeing Beckett, but if his father thought it had to do with sympathizing...

"Son."

"No, sir. Of course not. I just don't appreciate being firebombed," he said evenly. And yet he allowed a growl to roughen the edges of firebombed so that his father had something to think about.

"Who does? It's the job. Monday morning you ride with the crew and, Richard, for the sake of expediency, act smarter about it. You should be closer to Foley by now, not messing around with British pansies."

"Yes, sir," Castle said. The relief pressed into him like heat, suffusing his chest and easing the knot in his throat. Not a word about Beckett. "I'll send in the incident report for contact."

"Dismissed," Black clipped. The line ended, as it always did, with his father having the last word.

But Castle had diverted his attention. Black's carefully chosen word pansies had been spoken solely to align himself with his son, to set up the psychological sympathy which would allow him to maintain his handle over his agent in the field. Castle knew all these practices backwards and forwards, had been trained since he was five for this work; he knew what his father was doing. Establish rapport. Maintain connection. Deliver results.

That it fucking worked didn't matter. What mattered was that Black had bought the bias. Castle didn't care one way or the other about the guys in the crew; they were loyal to Foley and did his dirty work for easy money. He'd seen Mikey put a bullet in a woman's thigh just because she'd told him no - and Mikey was the sweet one. So no, Castle wasn't being swayed.

But if his father thought so, then that covered his tracks here. With Beckett.

And for some reason, Castle knew without a doubt that keeping her from his father's scrutiny and mind games was his top priority.


	15. Chapter 15

He'd thought about buying a few things, making it especially kinky, but after the phone call with his father, he just wanted - wanted normal. He wanted missionary and the way she stared up at him when she got close. He wanted to love her, tonight, at the end of his weekend, and leave her with the impression of that love if not the words.

He could make it special in its own way.

Castle bought ingredients for dessert since they were having a late lunch/early dinner at Remy's after her shift. He found chocolate sauce in her fridge and was inspired; he made brownies from scratch, slowly, being certain of all the measurements and the order of things. He cleaned up after himself as he went, not wanting to leave her a mess for later.

He had to make three batches before they came out right. The dog gave him whining entreaties with every redolent scent of chocolate, but Castle was pretty sure that dogs weren't allowed dessert. To be safe, he avoided Cujo's plaintive eyes and belly crawl by sticking him in the bathroom while Castle finished up.

He sealed the brownies with aluminum foil and washed down her counters, got everything back neatly the way it had been. He'd found an expensive red and he left it out on the stainless steel island, everything in place, ready for tonight.

He let the dog out again and Cujo whined up at him, sat on his haunches not moving.

"What?"

The dog growled and barked once, sharp and angry, and Castle realized, belatedly, that the dog hadn't been out since last night.

"Whoops," he muttered. "Sorry, sorry. Shit. That's bad. Not even Kate remembered."

Castle grabbed the leash off the entry table and Cujo practically shoved his way towards the door, wriggling and barking again, louder and louder, his anxious need making itself known. Castle figured the dog had been mostly sleeping this morning, and it was only eight, but still.

"I'm sorry, man. I know. I totally dropped the ball."

With the leash clipped onto Cujo's collar, the dog barreled for the stairs, dragging Castle behind him. They took the steps fast, made it to the bottom in record time, and then out the front security door. The dog took maybe fives paces away and stopped at a tree growing in a square cut-out from the sidewalk.

"Wow. You really had to go," Castle said appreciatively. And still going.

He hung around, checking out the neighborhood, the people passing, the general flow of traffic. He hadn't spotted anything suspicious, and he highly doubted that Vadim's men made it out of Brighton Beach. But he couldn’t be too careful.

Cujo tugged on the leash and Castle walked with him, grimacing as he realized he hadn't gotten a plastic bag. He'd have to stop in at this corner store and buy something just to get a bag for the dog's waste. Damn it. He didn't like leaving the thing tied up outside.

"All right, Wolf. You gotta stay here," he sighed, kneeling down next to a bike stand. "Don't move. Don't bite. Don't growl. Got me?"

Cujo still looked faintly anxious, and Castle rubbed his ears. The dog licked his fingers and whined again.

"I know, I know. I promise. Five minutes. I'll buy a bottle of water or something. Stay."

Cujo went still, evidently used to hearing such commands, and Castle hurried inside the mom and pop neighborhood store. The door had a sensor that sounded a bell when he stepped through and the older man behind the counter gave him a nod, went back to watching golf.

Castle hurried to the back where the coolers lined the wall, pulled out a bottle of water. He made a quick detour through the protein bars and snagged a couple for his flight tomorrow, and then he piled it all on the counter.

The man nodded to the front. "That your dog?"

"Yeah. He not allowed to be tied up out there?" Castle had no idea about the public laws regarding dogs. He was pretty sure they were required to be on a leash but he wasn't sure about tied up, alone.

"He's fine. He's drawn a crowd."

Castle cursed under his breath and turned his head, stepped away from the counter as the man rung up his items. The wolf seemed to be held at bay, allowing his head to be petted by two little giggling girls, a third with her arms around his neck.

"He's a good dog," the store owner said. "Nine-fifty."

Castle came back and paid in cash, gathering the plastic bag with his items. "I don't know," he answered truthfully. "We call him Cujo."

"Oh," the man replied, blinking and handing over change. "Maybe those girls shouldn't-"

Castle saw the stark and naked worry on the man's face, realized he was drawing attention not only to himself, but to the dog. The dog Kate would have here in this neighborhood, alone, marking her.

"No," he said quickly. "The girls are fine. I just mean - he's a rascal. He hogs the bed. And my girlfriend."

The man's face eased and he laughed, chuckling heartily, but he was already turning back to golf on the television at his counter, dismissing him.

Castle let out a breath and headed outside, not actually all that certain about the wolf with things smaller than him, things vulnerable.

"Hey, girls, maybe ease up on Cujo's neck," he said, smiling down at them. The oldest looked eleven, maybe a pixie twelve, and the youngest had to be four. But the middle kid, he had no idea. Nothing distinguishing about her except her blue eyes. She straightened up, loosened her little sister's arms from around the dog.

"He's nice," the oldest said. "He won't bite?"

"Course not. Will you?" he added, nudging the dog with his shoe. "But he's got to - ah, you know - take a dump? And so he's anxious to go."

"Take a - oh, he has to potty," the youngest said. She was giggling again.

The middle one with the blue eyes gave him a long look, still rubbing Cujo's ears. "Can we come with you?"

"No."

The little girl looked crushed, but Castle wasn't moved by little girls. He untied the leash and started off with the dog, heading away from them.

But the three girls started to follow.

He glanced over his shoulder, frowning at them, but they ignored him. He did the same, ignoring them as well, but they were whispering to each other, stage-whispering, and drawing attention.

Castle put up with it for another block and then he turned around when the pedestrians emptied from the sidewalk. "You should probably stick close to home. We're going too far for you."

"I can go wherever I want," the middle girl started hotly.

Her older sibling pinched her arm in rebuke. "No, you can't. We'resupposed to stay on our block. And we're not supposed to talk to strangers, Leah."

"Probably shouldn't tell strangers your names either," Castle frowned. He addressed Leah, the blue-eyed one who looked about as pissed and fiery as Beckett. "Leah, I'm not a nice man. And my dog isn't really a nice dog. Both of us? We put on a really good act; we can be polite. But you're not allowed to follow me, and I will be mean if I have to."

The youngest started to cry but Leah only puffed up and leaned in, poking her finger in his chest to retort. Castle gripped her finger quickly, forced her hand down just hard enough to get her attention, almost to the point of pain. Mild discomfort. She was a kid after all.

And she acted like Beckett.

So of course she punched him.

She punched him and immediately howled, clasping her hand to her chest.

Surprised by that move, he had released her hand and now he stepped back, the dog growling low and pressing against his calves. "Hush, you stupid dog. This is your fault. Leah, shit - you're gonna break your fingers doing it like that."

"Ow, ow," she yelped, hopping around as if that would make it better.

"We're not allowed to say shit," the older one said, looking distinctly nervous now. "Leah, that was really stupid. You punched him. He said he's not a nice man and he could punch you back."

"Well, no," Castle sighed. "I won't punch Leah back. Damn it, you girls - what are you doing following me? Leah, let me see your hand. You don't tuck your thumb in, girl."

Leah scowled at him and retreated, still holding her fist to her chest, and Castle rubbed his forehead in exasperation. The youngest began to giggle hysterically, pointing past Castle. He turned and glanced at the dog, saw the stupid mongrel was hunched over, shitting in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Damn it," he sighed.

What the hell?

\-----

Somehow Agent Castle had wound up icing down an eight year old's fist.

They sat on the bench at the bus stop just over from the corner store, and Castle manipulated her fingers one by one, making sure they weren't broken.

"I can't tell my mom," the oldest kept saying. "She'll kill me. We can't tell her. Right, Leah?"

"I'll be in such deep shit," Leah said morosely. She'd picked up on Castle's cursing right away, had started proudly trotting it out with almost every other sentence. The oldest girl was horrified, appropriately, and the youngest only giggled.

"You'll get whupped," the little one said, grinning widely at the prospect.

"Whupped?" Castle asked, laying the ice pack over Leah's purple thumb. She might have wrenched it; she'd gotten him in the ribs, at the hard part of the bone, and no, it hadn't hurt him, but it had definitely hurt her. "What's that mean?"

"Your momma never whupped you? I bet your daddy does."

"He did," Castle answered. "With whatever was lying around."

"Mostly Momma uses her hand but sometimes the wooden spoon if it's real bad," Leah sighed. "This is real bad. This is go to your room and think about it and then the wooden spoon."

"You try putting on a couple pairs of pants?" Castle said.

"She pulls 'em down." Leah gave him a hopeless glance.

"Yeah, my dad did too. Naked in the snow with your ass bleeding isn't any fun."

Leah blinked, the other two went still.

Ah. So. Not a real beating for Leah. Okay.

"Kidding," he said, giving them a smile. "Your hand will be okay after a few weeks, but if it turns hot and makes you feel funny, you need to tell your mom. She'll take you to get it checked, make sure it's not broken."

"It's not broken," Leah said imperiously. "I broke my arm once. Don't feel like this."

"Well, you could have cracked the bones in your fingers and not know it. I did that once. Punching a guy. So I know."

"You punched a guy?"

"A few guys."

"Did you hurt them real bad?"

"I did," he said honestly. He didn't want them following him any more. Or Kate later, when she had to take the dog out. "I told you I wasn't a nice man."

"You say shit and damn it," Leah said with relish. "How am I supposed to punch? Leave my thumb poking out?"

Castle sighed, rubbing his fingers over his brow. "Yeah," he muttered. "Sort of. But a girl like you - won't do any damage."

"I can do damage-" she started hotly, flaring up again, easy as that.

"Settle down, little wolf," he growled. "I'll show you a few things. Okay? No more punches. You'll break every bone in your hand trying to go at somebody like that and it won't do a thing to them."

"You'll show me?" Leah said, catching her breath and staring at him.

The littlest giggled. "Little wolf," she repeated to herself, rubbing at the dog's fur and hanging on him again. "Hey, little wolf."

Shit, had he said that? Fuck, this real life shit was not okay. It was messing him up. No wonder his father was always warning him off. He was trapped by an eight year old with eyes that sparked fury just like Beckett's. But damn her hair was wild and crazy, poofy, while the oldest and youngest had meticulous braids. Leah was letting it go natural.

Damn, he liked this stupid kid.

"I'll show you," he gave in, shaking his head.

Though he probably shouldn't show an eight year old how to go for the throat. Or the eyes. Shit, this was complicated. What if she got pissed and used it? Some poor unsuspecting ten year old boy trying to feel her up-

Fuck. Okay. He was showing her.

"Look, someone tries to touch you," he said intently, shoulders hunched as he peered down at her. "Sometime tries to put the move on you, take you, and you don't know them? They're a stranger or they're an older boy - or shit, your father? You don't feel right, it doesn't - they shouldn't be touching you there-"

"You mean molested?" she said clearly. "If I'm being molested."

"Shit," he grunted, sitting back. "Yeah."

"Okay. I do what?"

"Are you being molested?" he croaked.

"Of course not." She waved her uninjured hand over the neighborhood like it had been created just for her. "Momma told me to scream."

"Right, screaming is good. But better? Go for the eyes with your fingernails. Dig your fingers hard like a bird claw. Scrape them out."

Leah shivered and grinned up at him, clearly delighted in no way that any eight year old girl should be. "What else?" she whispered.

"They'll scream and try to shake you off. Even a trained professional can't withstand that."

"Trained professional molesters?"

He stared at her. "Yes. Even. Yes. Okay?"

"Okay. What else?"

"When they start bleeding from the eyes, you can go for the throat. That punch you threw? You got my ribs, kid, and that's about as high as you can reach. But when they grab you, and you claw their eyes out, it brings them down to your level. Most will double up in pain."

"The throat," she repeated with relish. The oldest was listening as well, which he figured could be good? He had no idea. This was probably a really terrible thing to tell them.

"You chop at their throat with the side of your hand. No fists. You've seen karate, right? You've seen the karate masters chop through concrete blocks and planks of wood with their hand."

"Yeah!"

The youngest seemed to be oblivious, coddling Castle's dog and trying to ride him. He ignored them and focused on Leah, who he thought just might get herself into a situation where she could use some good advice.

"But don't waste your time on it," he said. "If he doesn't start choking, stomp on his feet and run screaming."

"That's it?"

"That's enough. Repeat it back to me."

"Claw out his eyes, draw blood," she said, grinning up at him. "Karate chop his throat. Stomp on his toes and break them. And run screaming."

"Did I say break his toes?"

"You meant to," she said prettily. Fucking coy little girl. Damn it. She was so Beckett it was crazy. Fire, spirit, sass. Holy shit.

"I meant to," he echoed, shaking his head. He wasn't sure how appropriate it was for a CIA agent to be giving three little girls self-defense training without any mental discipline behind it, but if Leah was going to follow around self-confessed not-nice men and then punch them, he was going to do something about it. This was what he could do.

Well. He could do this for Beckett too, couldn't he? If she was going to fucking throw herself into situations like Friday night, then he could fucking train her. He ought to be training her.

Shit. That's how he did right by her. Leave her stronger rather than weaker, leave her with some skills to save her damn life rather than simply this blatant awareness of how solitary and alone she was, how she had no one who had her back.

He'd do that. Tonight. He'd show her a few things, get her started on a path he'd taken when he was five years old.

She could do it; she'd be better for it.

And he could feel easier about leaving her for his job.

Beside him, Leah flexed her fingers under the ice, her cold little hand in his, her joy beaming from her wide smile.

\-----

He walked the dog back to Beckett's, being wary of the possibility for an eight-year-old shadow, but Leah had solemnly promised not to follow not-nice men any more. And while he didn't believe her at all - Beckett wouldn't stop either if she thought she was right - he didn't see the girl behind him.

Castle unleashed the dog inside Kate's apartment and rolled up the leash, laid it back on the table. Cujo looked content and pleased with himself for the outing, and Castle merely nudged the thing out of his way and headed for Kate's bedroom.

If he was going to teach her self-defense, he was going to teach heer the mental discipline along with it. The only way to truly master these skills was with mastery over self. Castle had learned it long ago (was still learning it apparently, since he'd allowed an eight year old girl to punch him in the ribs and even worse, befriend him in some strange manner of speaking). And since Beckett needed to be strong in mind and body for Krav Maga training, Castle needed to know what he was up against.

Mentally. When it came to Kate Beckett and whatever... obsessions she had.

He pushed up the covers and fitted sheet on her side of the bed, found the stack of file folders she'd shoved between the mattress and box springs. He had pretended he hadn’t seen it, had pretended the index cards weren’t a problem. But he couldn’t pretend any longer. For her sake.

He pulled free the files and let the covers fall back, opened up the first folder as he sank down against the mattress.

Autopsy results. Photocopies, not that clean either - often handled or done in a hurry, not allowing time for the light to capture a good image before hurriedly pressing another one to the glass. Or even - photographs taken from the original file and then printed off on her inkjet at home. Shit, he bet that was it. A copier in the precinct would have a counter, maybe even require a key card. She had most likely sneaked in a camera and taken photos to reproduce the contents of this file.

And of course, it was her mother's autopsy - medical examiner's notes and photos. Shit, shit, this was bad. It looked really bad. Castle was used to gruesome death, but he'd seen her smiling face in portraits on the wall, seen her presence in touches around Jim's room, seen the way Kate curled in on herself when she talked about her mother.

Fuck. This autopsy. Kate couldn't do this to herself. Not alone, for sure.

Castle pulled the burner phone from his pocket and used its crappy camera to take photos of the main points - name of the examiner, detective of record, the findings, the unusual characteristics of the crime. The photos she'd taken illegally of the file might still be on her computer - even if she'd deleted them, they could most likely be recovered.

So she was consoling herself at night with photos of her mother's terrible death inside her father’s apartment. She was hardening herself - these images of a gunshot wound and ligature marks were her way of shellacking her soul, inuring her to grief. A kind of mental conditioning.

He was afraid it was working.

His father had done - was still doing - the same with him: toughening him up. Since he'd been five, Castle had undergone stress tests and endurance training, skill-sharpening and mental fortitude evaluations. He had a team that debriefed him after every mission - success or failure. As he still conditioned his body, his father had been conditioning his mind.

It worked. He knew it worked. He knew that enough of this - enough blows to the head, enough wounds to the psyche - eventually produced the machine you were looking for. Numb. Distant. Set apart from the rest of the world, not unable to connect but now completely unwilling.

He was that man.

Until Beckett. Until something about her independence and need, something about the flint in her eyes that poorly covered the wound, something about a woman so strong she drove him to the breaking point and broke right along with him had captured him, snared him. She had flipped him upside down, exposing his weak, soft underbelly.

Exposing the side of himself that was - maybe - most himself. Not the CIA spy, not the agent trained from youth for this life, not the machine. But the man.

The one he hadn't even known existed. There was a man below the not-nice and the Krav Maga and the paranoia, a man she had discovered.

He was living two lives. And he didn't know what to do, let alone how to keep Beckett from going down that dark numbing path.

Not alone. That’s all he knew. She couldn’t go alone.

\-----

He went out and bought some equipment and then he scoured her apartment, room by room, inch by inch, making sure to leave it looking completely untouched. He even used the hem of his shirt to keep from leaving fingerprints. He checked for hidden traps - hairs left carefully in the door hinges, threads that might break - but she didn't seem to have the level of paranoia for her private security that she had for her heart.

He was walking into warnings every time he merely complimented her, but her apartment was trustingly bare of alarms.

Castle put together the pieces of the case from what he found scattered around her apartment. The index cards he left inside the cabinets, but he took photographs with the one-time camera, using the whole roll of film and breaking out a second from the plastic package. He'd develop these later, but he needed to have his own case to study, to rearrange. He was going to do some research because he had the resources and the training she didn't have, no matter what she said.

He just wouldn't tell her about it.

She didn't need the anguish of knowing he was going through her mother's murder. She'd been vividly clear on that point their first week together - he wasn't allowed to touch it, wasn't allowed that far inside her. And he understood, he'd respected it, but he thought he had a right to it now. He had a right to it because she’d gone to that gambling den unprepared, because she was throwing herself into situations that weren’t tenable, because she was his.

She was his - she was - he was something to her, and he could help, and she needed a damn partner on this. She needed someone looking over her shoulder and second-guessing because no matter how many times she pored over the photos of her mother's body, she wasn't going to be unbiased about it.

She needed him, even if she didn't want to need him. And he knew that deep down, part of her wanted him pretty badly. Not just the sex. He was certain of it.

Fuck, even if she didn't want him, as sick as the thought made him, she needed someone. She couldn't do this to herself. She just - she couldn't do this alone. He'd even, fuck, Castle would even rather have Mike Royce back in her life if it meant she just... she just wasn't alone.

Not in this. It was her mother. And while Castle didn't really have memories of his own, he knew the feeling of having it ripped away, remembered that lonely ride to his father's training station the day his mother never came to pick him up. He knew that feeling - mother is never coming back. He just couldn't let her be in that place alone.

She needed someone. He needed her - and if he could do something at all right for her, it would be this. A lead on her mother's case, something to go on, a chance for closure.

He didn't want her numb, didn't want her living the life he led. She belonged here, with all that passion and fire and spit - just like that stubborn eight year old with her fast right hook. Kate wasn't the machine; it scared him to think of it, made him want to shake her, made him want to take her, force her to feel, to feel him, know him, come apart for him because she was so alive and intense and right.

Everything felt precious and vulnerable today; the weekend was falling apart around him.

She had hooked his guts and was pulling the humanity up in him, tugging it up where it hadn't been in so long, raw and exposed. He was longing for the mission, for the escape to Ireland and thugs and beer and nothing but the job. He needed a fucking break; he wasn't equipped to handle this in real life, where it mattered to him so vitally.

God, he wanted her. It was scrambling him up. If his father knew, he'd be so furious for how Castle had let himself unravel over her. His hands were shaking as he put everything back where it belonged.

He just didn't want her to die. He didn't want her to die. Somehow obsessing over her mother's murder had begun to be the same as death to him, and he knew it was because it would take her over, it would harden her or it would break her, and he couldn't bear it.

He loved her.

He just didn't want her to die.

It was time to go pick her up from the 12th. He needed to get it together, man up, school his features and pretend like she hadn't wrecked him inside.

Because he had to fly to Ireland on Monday morning, and he had to know he was leaving her better off.


End file.
